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EIGHT    CENTURIES    OF 
PORTUGUESE    MONARCHY 


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DOM  MANUEL  II,  33RD  KING  OF  PORTUGAL 
AND  29TH  OF  THE  ALGARVES,  Etc. 


EIGHT    CENTURIES 

OF   PORTUGUESE 

MONARCHY 

A    POLITICAL    STUDY 

BY 

V.    de    BRAGANgA    GUNHA 


NEW   YORK 

JAMES    POTT   &   GOMPANY 
1911 


^^' 


'.^ 


-v^ 


•  -•'  •    • 


•    •  •   ••  » 


TO  THOSE  PORTUGUESE 

LIVING  AND  DEPARTED 
WHO  HAVE   HONOURED  THE  PORTUGUESE  NAME  ABROAD 

.  .  .  que  eu  tenho  jd  jurado, 

Que  nao-no  empregue  em  quern  o  nao  merega, 

Nem  por  lisonja  louve  algum  subido 

Sob  pena  de  nao  ser  agradecido. 

The  "Lusiads,"  Canto  7th.  Stanza  83. 

...  for  I  have  sworn 
That  on  the  unworthy  nought  will  I  bestow ; 
Nor  on  high  rank  my  flattery  will  intrude, 
On  pain  of  reaping  mere  ingratitude. 

Translation  by  J.  J.  AUBERTIN. 


228514 


CONTENTS 

PACK 

Introductory  .    .     .     .    .  -15 

I.  The  Age  of  the  Heroes   .     .     .  .28 

II.  Camoes  .......   57 

III.  Portugal  for  the  Portuguese      .           .  -74 

IV   Marquis  de  Pombal    .           .           .           .  .89 

V.  A  Nation's  Distress  .           .           .           .  .103 

VI.  The  Struggle  for  Constitutional  Liberty  .     122 

VII.  Illusive  Hopes            .           .           .           .  .141 

VIII.  Turn  of  the  Tide      .           .           .           .  .152 

IX.  A  Friends'  Quarrel  .           .           .           .  .     i79 

X.  Constitutionalism  :  Its  Death  Pangs      .  .201 
XI.  Men  and  Principles  .....    240 

Bibliography     .           .           .           .           .  .255 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


DoM  Manuel  II         . 

DoM  JOAO  I,  King  of  Portugal  (i 383-1433) 

Prince  Henry,  "The  Navigator"  (1394- 1460) 

Vasco  da  Gama  (1460-1524) 

Affonso  d'  Albuquerque  (1453-15 15) 

Luiz  DE  Camoes  (i 524-1 579) 

Marquis  de  Pombal  (i 699-1 782)    . 


Costa    Cabral,    Count    of    Thomar, 
Minister  (1839-1851) 


Duke  de  Saldanha  (1791-1876)     . 

DoM  Pedro  V,  King  of  Portugal  (1853-1861) 

Almeida  Garrett  (1799- 18 54) 

Alexandre  Herculano  (1810-1877) 

Serpa  Pinto  (1846- 1900) 

DoM  Carlos,  King  of  Portugal  (1889-1908) 

JOAO  Franco,  "The  Dictator"     . 


Prime 


Frontispiece 
Facing  p.  29 
33 
39 
49 
65 
97 

149 
153 
161 
163 
177 

193 

225 
241 


PREFACE 

PORTUGAL  has  stood  towards  England  in  such  a 
peculiarly  intimate  relation  that  the  political  events  in 
Portugal  must  awaken  feelings  of  interest  to  which  no  English- 
man can  remain  indifferent.  Ties  of  alliance  and  friendship 
have  formed  a  strong  link  between  the  interests  of  the  two 
nations. 

The  Anglo-Portuguese  alliance,  which  dates  back  to  the 
time  of  the  Crusades,  was  an  alliance  so  precious  in  obligations 
that  it  was  maintained  by  Portugal  throughout  the  whole  of 
her  national  career,  obligations  which  were  renewed  in  the 
compact  of  modern  Europe — the  convention  of  Vienna — and 
the  subsequent  treaties,  the  last  of  which  dates  from  1909 
when  King  Manuel  visited  this  country. 

During  the  Middle  Ages  the  Crusaders  of  England  assisted 
the  Portuguese  in  their  wars  against  the  Moors,  and  it  was  with 
such  aid  that  the  first,  and  the  great,  king  of  Portugal  re- 
conquered Lisbon  from  the  Saracens.  Some  centuries  later 
the  great  and  memorable  battle  of  Aljubarrota  was  gained  over 
the  Spaniards  and  French  by  the  allied  forces  of  England  and 
Portugal,  and  the  friendship  between  the  two  countries  was 
confirmed  by  the  marriage  of  the  founder  of  the  dynasty  of 
A  viz  to  the  daughter  of  John  of  Gaunt.  Charles  11  of 
England  married  Catherine  of  Braganga,  who  brought  to  this 
country,  as  a  part  of  her  dowry,  the  island  of  Bombay,  a  gift 
that  urged  England  to  a  great  imperial  career.  When  the 
eagles  of  Napoleon  were  planted  in  almost  every  capital  of 
Europe,  and  the  Peninsular  War  linked  Portugal  sorrowfully 


12        Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

enough  with  the  destinies  of  Europe  and  larger  interests, 
English  and  Portuguese  soldiers  fought  side  by  side  to  free 
Europe  from  the  shadow  of  the  French  Empire.  The  inter- 
vention of  Canning  in  1826  on  behalf  of  the  Constitutional 
Regency  of  Portugal  against  the  supporters  of  Dom  Miguel 
de  Braganga,  whose  cause  was  identified  with  the  interests  of 
European  absolutism,  is  a  fact  which  the  Portuguese  cannot 
easily  forget.  Even  the  bearer  to  Portugal  of  the  Constitu- 
tional Charter,  granted  by  Dom  Pedro,  the  Emperor  of  Brazil, 
was  a  Plenipotentiary  of  Great  Britain.  More  recently  we 
have  the  South  African  War,  when  England  had  scarcely  a 
friend  in  Europe,  and  Portugal  forgot  her  grievances  over 
Manicaland  and  rendered  every  support  she  could  at  Delagoa 
Bay  and  Beira  to  her  ancient  and  powerful  ally.  The  pages  that 
follow  may  therefore  engage  the  attention  of  the  British  public. 

This  book  is  an  attempt  to  call  up  the  soul  of  Portugal  to 
those  who  see  only  its  corpse.  It  is  a  sketch  of  the  Portuguese 
nation  in  which  I  have  tried  to  bring  out  the  broad  lines  of 
the  life  of  the  people,  and  to  indicate,  as  far  as  possible, 
the  influences  which  have  moulded  their  politics ;  an  under- 
taking which  I  fear  has,  from  its  very  magnitude,  surpassed 
my  abilities. 

I  tread  forbidden  ground  in  these  pages,  but  I  do  so  con- 
vinced that  adverse  criticism  of  any  country,  however  un- 
pleasant it  may  be  to  the  Chadbands  and  Stigginses,  cannot 
be  considered  abusive  if  it  be  made  with  the  intention  of 
stirring  up  the  forces  of  reform  and  remedying  the  defects 
that  it  discloses.  The  motto  of  my  excuse  shall  therefore  be 
talken  from  Pope's  "  Temple  of  Fame  " — 

"In  every  work  regard  the  writer's  end; 
None  e'er  can  compass  more  than  they  intend."^ 

'  Essay  on  Criticism^  v.  255-256. 


Ptelace  13 

This  is  not  the  time  to  cast  the  horoscope  of  Portugal.  What- 
ever her  future  politics,  she  will  have  to  seek  salvation  in  her 
own  best  traditions.  May  the  example  of  one  of  the  greatest 
Portuguese  that  ever  lived,  who  by  his  genius  preserved  for 
Portugal  her  nationality  and  her  language,  continue  to  incite 
and  to  animate  those  who  are  treading  in  his  steps  to  excellence 
and  to  honour ! 

At  the  time  when  the  greater  part  of  the  nation  was  serving 
temporary  interests,  Camoes  sought  in  history  the  secret  of 
his  nation's  true  greatness,  and  trusted  to  his  work  to  keep  up 
the  spirit  of  loyalty  in  the  evil  days  of  the  loyal  cause.  His 
impetuous  sense  of  right,  his  disdain  of  meaner  minds  and 
motives,  caused  him  to  revolt  against  that  which  was  false  and 
artificial.  And  his  "  Lusiads  "  has  exercised  a  paramount  influ- 
ence in  the  political  development  and  internal  economy  of  the 
nation.  In  all  the  crises  which  have  brought  into  play  all  the 
resources  of  intelligence  and  all  the  emotions  of  conscience  of  a 
people,  the  "  Lusiads  "  has  been  an  influence  in  the  destinies  of 
the  nation.  When  Philip  ii  in  1580  seized  upon  the  kingdom 
and  reduced  it  to  the  abject  state  of  a  conquered  province,  the 
Bishop,  Frei  Thomas  de  Faria,  to  animate  a  whole  torpid  people 
with  a  spirit  of  self-consciousness,  undertook,  in  his  eightieth 
year  of  age,  a  work  on  the  "  Lusiads  "  which  he  dedicated  to 
the  Portuguese  nation.  The  poem  of  Camoes  was  a  potent 
factor  in  the  revolution  of  1640  under  Joao  Pinto  Ribeiro,  who 
commentated  the  "  Lusiads,"  a  revolution  which  brought  the 
sixty  years  of  captivity  to  an  end  and  enthroned  the  house  of 
Braganga.  During  the  regency  of  John  vi,  when  people  would 
not  endure  the  despotism  of  a  foreign  proconsul,  there  grew 
up  in  the  country  the  idea  of  erecting  a  national  monument  to 
the  great  bard.  When  the  advisers  of  John  vi  trampled  on 
the  Constitution  of  1822,  Viscount  d'  Almeida  Garrett,  with 


14       Porttigtiesc  Monarchy 

the  desire  of  reviving  the  great  traditions  of  his  country, 
devoted  his  muse,  while  in  exile,  to  the  memory  of  Camoes. 
When  England,  the  oldest  ally  of  Portugal,  sent  an  ultimatum 
in  1890,  Lisbon  witnessed  the  most  heart-rending  scene.  In 
the  presence  of  a  large  crowd  Eduardo  d'  Abreu,  a  deputy, 
covered  with  a  black  veil  the  statue  of  Camoes,  which  has 
stood  in  Lisbon  since  1867. 

"The  conqueror,"  says  a  Portuguese,  "who  shall  ever 
attempt  to  subjugate  our  beloved  country  must  first  tear  in 
pieces  every  page  of  the  '  Lusiads.' "  Parodying  these  words,  I 
may  say  that  if  it  was  by  pointing  to  Caesar's  corpse  and  by 
reading  his  will  to  the  crowd  that  Anthony  succeeded  in 
making  the  populace  rise  against  the  murderers  of  Caesar ;  it  is 
only  by  pointing  to  the  statue  of  Camoes  and  by  reading  the 
"  Lusiads  "  to  the  Portuguese  people  that  it  will  be  possible  to 
rouse  the  popular  conscience  to  a  sense  of  responsibility  for 
the  national  unity  and  political  autonomy  of  Portugal. 

I  have  now  to  perform  the  pleasant  duty  of  thanking  all 
those  who  have  taken  an  interest  in  the  publication  of  this 
book.  I  am  specially  indebted  to  Mr.  Tom  Titt  for  his 
ready  and  courteous  co-operation.  The  sketches,  drawn  after 
portraits  and  prints,  chosen  by  myself  from  various  sources 
not  accessible  to  the  majority  of  my  readers,  do  great  credit 
to  the  artist.  I  wish  further  to  thank  most  warmly  Mr.  A.  R. 
Orage  for  the  special  interest  he  took  in  my  work,  and  Mr. 
H.  G.  L.  Greaves  for  aiding  me  with  many  good  suggestions. 

V.  DE  B.  C. 
London,  191  i. 


EIGHT   CENTURIES   OF 
PORTUGUESE    MONARCHY 

INTRODUCTORY 

THE  time-honoured  Portuguese  fables  and 
legends  evoke  periods  that  suggest  a  very 
remote  antiquity.  Anticipating  an  unhesitating 
belief  in  all  their  statements,  the  old  Portuguese 
chroniclers  credit  Tubal,  the  grandson  of  Noah, 
with  having  founded  Setubal,  the  small  town  to 
the  south-east  of  Lisbon. 

Much  of  the  early  history  of  this  westernmost 
state  of  Europe  is,  of  course,  hopelessly  involved 
in  obscurity,  and  depends  upon  extreme  con- 
jecture. This  makes  it  difficult  to  choose  be- 
tween the  opinions  of  Herculano,  the  great 
Portuguese  historian,  and  those  of  Theophilo 
Braga,  the  eloquent  representative  of  modern 
Portuguese  historical  criticism.  The  former, 
putting  aside  a  vast  mass  of  legendary  lore,  has 
drawn  a  strong  line  of  demarcation  between  the 

16 


16       Porttcgtiese  Monarchy 

Roman  Luzitania,  inhabited  by  the  most  obsti- 
nately personal  of  all  tribes  of  the  Peninsula,  and 
modern  Portugal ;  while  the  latter,  admitting  into 
his  works  the  force  of  tradition,  has  turned  to 
his  own  patriotic  purposes  the  fourteen  years 
of  Roman  war  with  the  brave  Luzitanian  shep- 
herd, Viriathus,  the  Dux  Latronum  of  the  Rome 
of  Lucullus  and  Marcus  Cato. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  in  either  case  we  continually 
come  into  possession  of  information  which  makes 
us  conscious  of  a  political  development  at  once 
tortuous  and  convulsive,  but  which  has  happened 
within  the  shortest  period  of  the  life  of  a  nation. 

The  Roman  occupation  of  the  Peninsula,  which 
brought  with  it  an  extensive  infusion  of  Roman 
customs,  as  shown  by  the  establishment  of  muni- 
cipia,  the  keystone  of  their  political  organisation, 
which  survived  subsequent  dominations  and  which 
gave  to  Portugal  the  benefit  of  their  rational 
liberty  and  mental  enlightenment ;  the  dismember- 
ment of  that  proud  sovereignty  when  feelings 
more  selfish  operated  in  the  Roman  affairs  of 
the  Peninsula ;  the  government  of  the  Vizigoths, 
who,  though  unable  to  bring  about  the  fusion  of 
conquerors  and  conquered,  favoured  the  principles 
of  liberty,  inherited  by  the  **  Cortes,"  of  which 
the  Portuguese  have  so  much  reason  to  be  proud ; 


Introductory  1 1 

the  debasement  of  this  once  strong  and  manly- 
race  that  for  two  hundred  years  subdued  the 
country  till  the  turbulence  of  extreme  feudalism 
led  to  their  overthrow  by  the  Arabs  ;  the  career 
of  the  followers  of  Mahomet,  when  we  hear  much 
less  of  dearth  than  in  earlier  times,  their  domina- 
tion marked  by  permanent  conquests  of  a  civilisa- 
tion that  was  gradually  borrowed  or  rather 
absorbed  by  the  subdued  races  of  the  Peninsula 
— all  these  salient  points  in  the  early  history  of 
Portugal  will  excite  the  keenest  interest  in  those 
who  want  to  study  the  nation  in  her  heredity, 
and  strive  to  surprise  the  secret  of  her  political 
development. 

So  much  for  the  blessings  and  curses  upon  the 
cradle  of  this  nation.  But  to  turn  to  the  period 
that  gave  to  Portugal  many  of  the  embellishments 
of  social  life,  chivalry,  and  not  a  little  law. 

At  the  dawn  of  the  eleventh  century,  the  over- 
throw of  the  Koran  by  the  Gospel  resulted  in 
the  victory  of  Bermudo  ii.  King  of  Gallicia, 
who  seized  Oporto  and  occupied  the  province 
of  Entre  Minho  e  Douro.  Other  successes  fol- 
lowed immediately.  In  1055  Ferdinand  the 
Great,  King  of  Leon,  Castille,  and  Gallicia,  in- 
vaded Beira,  and  two  years  later  took  Lamego 
and    Vizeu.     In    1064    Coimbra    was   taken   and 


18        Porttiguese  Monarchy 

made  the  capital  of  the  new  county  that  was 
added  to  King  Ferdinand's  dominions.  At  the 
century's  close,  Dom  Affonso  Henriques,  the  son 
of  Henry  of  Burgundy  upon  whom  Affonso  vi 
of  Castille  conferred  the  title  of  Count  of  Porto- 
Cale,  became  the  founder  of  the  dynasty  of 
Burgundy,  from  which  sprang  the  first  kings 
of  Portugal. 

But  no  circumstance  could  be  more  propitious 
to  the  growth  of  this  nation  than  the  divisions 
which  had  taken  place  in  the  Omayad  Caliphate. 
Here  began  the  moulding  and  training  of  the 
martial  spirit  that  was  to  become  the  spirit  of 
the  age.  And  the  Portuguese,  fired  with  the 
same  fervour  that  led  Godfrey  de  Bouillon  and 
Richard  Cceur  de  Lion  to  fight  the  Infidels  in 
Palestine,  waged  war  against  the  Moors,  the  foe 
of  their  country  and  the  enemy  of  their  religion. 
It  was  as  though  an  ecstasy  had  come  upon  their 
soul — as  though  a  voice  from  heaven  had  bidden 
them  exterminate  the  Moor. 

The  first  attempt,  therefore,  of  the  Portuguese 
was  to  banish  the  Moor,  and,  in  view  of  subse- 
quent events,  it  is  pleasing  to  note  their  energetic 
efforts, — the  gallant  fights  of  Dom  Affonso 
Henriques,  who,  when  only  fourteen,  was  dubbed 
knight,    and    who    won    the   battle   of    Ourique, 


Introductory  19 

wherein  five  powerful  walls  of  Badajoz,  Lisbon, 
Elvas,  Beja,  and  Evora  fell  dead  along  with  the 
Spanish  Saracen  and  African  armies ;  the  con- 
quest of  Santarem,  the  stronghold  of  the  Moor, 
which  the  Christians  since  the  time  of  the 
Leonese  kings  had  attempted  to  seize ;  the 
reconquest  of  Lisbon  from  the  Saracen  chiefs  by 
Dom  Affonso  Henriques ;  the  victories  of  Dom 
Sancho  i,  who  increased  the  orders  of  knight- 
hood of  military  monasticism ;  the  recapture  of 
Alcacer  do  Sal  in  the  reign  of  Dom  Affonso  ii, 
and  the  final  driving  out  of  the  Moors  in  the 
reign  of  Dom  Diniz,  the  sixth  king  of  Portugal. 
But,  taken  as  a  whole,  this  period  of  infancy,  for 
"nations  like  men  have  their  infancy,"^  when 
patriotism  was  just  kindling  and  the  frontiers  of 
the  kingdom  were  being  formed,  a  vein  of  inde- 
cision runs  through  the  whole  policy  of  most  of 
the  early  kings  of  Portugal,  whose  fickleness 
jeopardised  the  prospects  of  strengthening  the 
independence  of  the  kingdom. 

The  development  of  national  life  that  had 
become  possible  in  view  of  the  fact  that,  at  the 
intervention  of  the  Holy  See,  Affonso  vii  of 
Leon  and  Castille  had  recognised  Dom  Affonso 
Henriques  as  king  and  vassal  of  the  Pope,  was 

^  Lord  Bolingbrc^ce,  Of  the  Study  of  History,  Letter  IV. 


20        Portttgaese  Monarchy 

disturbed  by  the  action  of  Dom  Sancho  i,  who, 
having  striven  to  repudiate  the  former  submission 
of  his  father  to  the  Holy  See,  attempted  to 
regulate  the  relations  of  the  State  with  the  Church 
in  accordance  with  the  policy  of  Juliao,  his  chan- 
cellor, who  had  studied  the  revival  of  Roman 
law  at  Bologna.  The  attacks  on  the  Bishop  of 
Oporto,  who  would  not  yield  to  any  encroachment 
upon  his  prerogatives,  provoked  a  papal  bull  of 
Innocent  iii,  warning  the  Portuguese  sovereign 
that  serious  punishment  was  awaiting  him  in 
Rome  if  he  should  proceed  to  overturn  the  estab- 
lished system  of  clerical  exemption  in  Portugal  ; 
and  Sancho  i  obeyed  the  Pope's  command.  But 
his  son,  Affonso  ii,  whom  the  penalties  of  Rome, 
imposed  by  Honorius  ii,  failed  to  check,  scorned 
to  make  any  compromise  with  the  Pope,  and  died 
under  excommunication,  maintaining  to  the  last 
the  policy  of  his  chancellor,  Gon^alo  Mendes,  an 
ardent  disciple  of  Juliao.  The  conflicts  continued,' 
and  the  clerical  element  gained  a  mastery  over 
the  council  and  municipalities.  Dom  Sancho  ii 
was  deposed  through  the  influence  of  the  bishops 
and  excommunicated  by  Pope  Innocent  iv — an 
event  which  plunged  the  country  in  distress. 
While  Dom  Sancho  ii  ended  his  days  at  Toledo, 
his  brother  and  successor,  Affonso  iii,  who  had  an 


Introductory  21 

exceptional  ambition  and  a  turbulent  progress, 
defied  the  Holy  See  by  pretending  to  be  above 
the  control  of  its  laws,  and  married  the  daughter  of 
Affonso  X  of  Leon  and  Castille  while  his  first  wife, 
Mathilda,  the  Countess  of  Bologne,  was  alive. 

In  the  midst  of  these  political  transactions 
partaking  of  a  religious  character,  which  are  con- 
sidered as  the  most  disgraceful  part  of  the  history 
of  those  times,  there  came  to  the  throne  Dom 
Diniz,  the  wisest  king  that  that  age  produced — 
a  king  who  turned  his  attention  to  the  actual 
orgatiisation  of  the  realm,  and  laid  the  foundation 
of  the  country's  future  commercial  greatness. 
The  days  of  the  reign  of  Dom  Diniz  bore  witness 
to  a  remarkable  intensity  of  national  conscious- 
ness and  piety  that  characterised  the  days  of  his 
consort,  the  Queen  Isabella,  canonised  in  the 
sixteenth  century. 

Notwithstanding  the  instances  of  avarice  with 
which  that  great  patron  of  agriculture,  the  king 
** labourer"  and  founder  of  the  University  of 
Coimbra,  is  charged,  the  nation  enjoyed  perhaps 
the  highest  degree  of  liberty  compatible  with 
good  order.  But  if  Dom  Diniz  omitted  no  fair 
occasion  of  bringing  before  the  mind  of  the  nation 
any  example  of  moral  and  political  excellence,  the 
last  kings  of  the  dynasty  of  Burgundy  give  the 


22        Portagtiese  Monarchy 

impression  that  they  had  not  learnt  to  overrule 
minor  interests  in  favour  of  great  ones.  The 
melancholy  history  of  the  period  that  follows  the 
days  of  Dom  Diniz  veils  the  darkest  passages 
of  individual  shame.  His  son,  Dom  Affonso  iv, 
whose  historical  individuality  consisted  in  re- 
volting against  his  own  father,  would  have 
brought  all  the  miseries  of  a  civil  war  had  it  not 
been  for  the  reconciliation  brought  about  by  the 
holy  Queen  between  a  rowdy  son  and  a  devoted 
husband.  But  consistently  cruel,  this  "  Proud 
King"  further  stained  his  reign  with  the  murder 
of  the  unhappy  Dona  Ignez  de  Castro,  who  had 
married  his  son.  Yielding  to  the  intrigues  of 
Alvaro  Gon9alves,  Pedro  Coelho,  and  Diogo 
Lopes  Pacheco,  and  unmoved  by  the  sight  of 
three  children  begging  for  mercy,  he  remorse- 
lessly ordered  their  mother  to  be  massacred  in 
cold  blood,  and  her  remains  to  be  committed 
immediately  to  burial  in  the  Convent  of  Santa 
Clara  at  Coimbra — a  tragedy  that  marred  the 
pages  of  Portuguese  history,  but  which  called 
forth  the  sweet  and  pathetic  strains  of  Camoes, 
inspired  Antonio  Ferreira,  the  Portuguese  Horace, 
to  produce  '*  Ignez  de  Castro,"  ^  and  was  the  theme 

^  This  tragedy  was  translated  into  English  by  Thomas  Moore 
Musgrave  in  1825. 


Introductory  23 

of  a  sonnet  of  Boccaccio,  a  tragedy  of  Fran9ois 
Lamotte,  and  an  opera  of  Persian!. 

No  sooner  had  this  king  disappeared  from  the 
scene,  than  his  son,  Dom  Pedro  "  the  Severe," 
signalised  the  first  years  of  his  short  reign  by 
revenging  the  assassination  of  his  wife,  Ignez  de 
Castro.  Her  murderers,  anticipating  the  wrath 
of  the  son  of  Dom  Affonso  iv,  had  taken  refuge  in 
Castille,  and  when  given  up  by  Pedro  *'  the  Cruel," 
Dom  Pedro's  nephew,  were  thrown  into  dungeons 
and  subjected  to  every  possible  form  of  torture. 
The  Portuguese  king  ordered  the  living  hearts 
of  Gon^alves  and  Coelho  —  for  Pacheco  had 
managed  to  escape — to  be  torn  out  from  their 
bodies,  and  their  hearts  and  bodies  to  be  burnt 
together !  Though  the  anger  of  this  monarch 
passed  as  quickly  as  it  had  risen,  his  haughty 
and  inflexible  spirit,  that  would  not  acknowledge 
the  advantages  of  dealing  diplomatically  with  the 
nobility  and  the  clergy,  was  reflected  in  all  his  acts, 
and  he  showed  no  more  mercy  for  clerical  than 
for  feudal  immunities — a  harshness  which  perhaps 
occasion  and  the  times  might  justify.  But  '*  kings 
will  be  tyrants  from  policy  when  subjects  are 
rebels  from  principle."^ 

The  history  of  Portugal  degenerates  now  into 

^  ;Purk^  on  the  French  Revolution, 


24        Porttigtcese  Monarchy 

a  chronique  scandaleuse.  The  last  hopes  of  the 
nation  under  the  kings  of  the  dynasty  of  Burgundy 
were  rendered  unhappy  by  the  levities  of  King 
Ferdinand,  the  successor  of  Dom  Pedro.  The 
passion  of  this  king  for  a  woman,  the  beautiful 
Leonora  Telles,  wife  of  Dom  Joao  Louren^o  da 
Cunha,  Lord  of  Pombeiro,  was  the  misfortune 
of  the  nation  and  of  the  king  himself.  Dom 
Ferdinand,  notwithstanding  his  betrothal  to  the 
daughter  of  the  Castillian  king,  married  this 
woman  after  having  made  her  his  mistress.  It 
caused  a  series  of  wars  with  Castille,  and  the  '' 
Portuguese  king  found,  to  his  surprise,  this 
woman  transferring  her  affections  to  a  certain 
Count  Andeiro. 

It  is  not,  however,  till  1383  that  the  line  of 
succession  to  the  throne  was  interrupted  by  the 
death  of  King  Ferdinand,  an  event  which  marked 
a  crisis  in  the  history  of  Portugal.  A  period  of 
strife  ensued  similar  to  that  between  England  and 
Scotland  during  the  reign  of  Edward  i.  John  i 
of  Castille,  who  had  married  Beatrix,  the  illegiti- 
mate daughter  of  King  Ferdinand,  had  seized  the 
opportunity  to  claim  the  throne  ;  and  he  had  im- 
prisoned the  legal  heir  to  the  throne,  the  Infante 
Dom  Joao,  King  Ferdinand's  illegitimate  brother, 
the  son  of  Dona  Ignez  de  Castro. 


Introductory  25 

The  nation,  now  at  the  mercy  of  Dona  Leonora 
Telles,  who  had  assumed  regency  of  the  kingdom, 
felt  that  it  should  no  longer  allow  Count  Andeiro, 
lover  of  the  Queen  Regent,  to  dictate  the  policy 
of  the  realm.  The  Queen's  lover  and  the  nation 
had  been  at  daggers  drawn  too  long  to  regard 
each  other  with  any  feelings  but  bitter  hatred. 

The  idea  gave  force  and  direction  to  the 
transitional  development  of  Portuguese  politics. 
And  the  people,  with  a  confidence  in  the  moral 
qualities  of  Dom  Joao,  the  bastard  son  of  Dom 
•  Pedro  I,  who  at  the  age  of  seven  was  elected 
Master  of  the  famous  Order  of  Aviz,  irrresistibly 
pushed  him  to  the  front. 

Under  these  conditions  of  mingled  hope  and 
alarm  the  Master  of  Aviz  plotted  the  death  of 
Andeiro  and  organised  the  defence  of  the 
kingdom.  With  the  death  of  Andeiro,  equiva- 
lent to  the  storming  of  the  Bastille,  there  began 
a  period  of  breathless  excitement.  The  Queen, 
mad  with  grief,  tried  to  avenge  the  death  of  the 
man  she  really  loved  by  inviting  the  King  of 
Castille  to  invade  the  kingdom.  To  appease 
her  anger  the  aged  and  popular  Alvaro  Paes,  the 
chancellor  of  the  late  King,  and  Alvaro  Gongalves 
Camello,  proposed  that  she  should  marry  the 
Master  of  Aviz,  the  very  man  who  had  deprived 


26        Portagtiese  Monarchy 

her  of  her  lover  !  So  seriously  was  this  idea  en- 
tertained that  a  part  of  the  nation  thought  of 
petitioning  the  Pope  to  dispense  the  Master  of 
Aviz  from  the  vows  of  monastic  knighthood. 
Meanwhile  the  nation  got  ready  to  repel  the 
invasion  of  the  King  of  Castille,  who  was 
approaching  the  frontiers. 

The  eagerness  of  a  great  national  effort  blotted 
out  all  local  differences,  and  the  Master  of  Aviz, 
who  had  won  the  confidence  of  the  people,  was 
elected  defender  and  ruler  of  the  kingdom.  The 
difference  between  the  two  kingdoms  was  finally 
settled  in  the  decisive  and  memorable  battle  of 
Aljubarrota  in  1385,  gained  over  the  Spaniards 
and  French  by  the  allied  forces  of  England  and 
Portugal.  This  battle  resulted  in  establishing 
the  independence  of  the  kingdom  and  founding 
the  dynasty  of  Aviz,  of  which  King  John  i  was 
the  first  representative. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  the  Portugal  with 
which  we  shall  be  concerned  came  into  existence. 

**  Until  Aljubarrota,"  wrote  Oliveira  Martins 
in  his  History  of  Portugal.,  *'the  Kingdom  of 
Portugal  was  but  a  fief  that  had  revolted  in  the 
very  same  way  as  Gallicia  and  Biscay " ;  and  it 
is  impossible  to  free  the  history  of  Portugal  in 
the  times  preceding  the  revolution  of  1383-85 — 


Introductory  27 

which  is  a  sort  of  chronological  Mecca  for  the 
Portuguese — from  the  policy  so  destitute  of  in- 
spiration that  made  her  remain  dependent  on 
the  kingdom  of  Leon-Castille,  that,  till  Aljubar- 
rota,  had  still  the  means  of  injuring  her  political 
development.  Portugal,  with  her  nobles  that 
revelled  in  the  tyranny  they  exercised  over  their 
vassals,  and  a  clergy  with  a  disposition  for  litigi- 
ousness,  could  not  possibly  attain,  before  1383, 
that  national  integrity  that  imparts  strength  to  the 
character  of  a  nation.  It  is  therefore  with  the 
foundation  of  the  dynasty  of  Aviz,  when  the 
Portuguese  rose  to  their  opportunities  and 
evinced  political  qualities  with  which  the  race 
was  admittedly  gifted,  that  the  history  and  fate 
of  Portugal,  as  it  relates  to  the  general  develop- 
ment of  her  politics,  properly  begins. 


THE  AGE  OF  THE  HEROES 

DOM  JOAO  I,  being  elected  king  by  the 
**  Cortes"  assembled  at  Coimbra  in  1385, 
conscious  that  he  had  to  be  an  inspiring  force  in 
a  movement  to  maintain  that  feeling  of  independ- 
ence exemplified  in  the  events  that  led  to  the 
battle  of  Aljubarrota,  married  the  English  Princess 
Philippa  of  Lancaster,  daughter  of  John  of  Gaunt 
by  his  second  marriage,  and  added  another  link 
to  the  already  lengthening  chain  of  the  Anglo- 
Portuguese  friendship  that  then  had  in  its  favour 
a  strong  and  decided  public  feeling  of  the  nation. 
By  her  he  became  the  father  of  five  princes,  known 
as  Duarte  the  Eloquent,  Pedro  the  Great  Regent, 
Henry  the  Navigator,  John  the  Constable,  and 
Ferdinand  the  Saint — princes  whose  undaunted 
courage  and  exceptional  talents  raised  Portugal 
to  a  pitch  of  wealth  and  power  that  excited  the 
admiration  of  all  Europe. 

This  first  representative  of  the  dynasty  of  Aviz 

was  a  very  fortunate  monarch  and  a  not  less  happy 

38 


ccc,c,  (■       cccsc      c 

't   \       c  Vc        c     .,«.    c        c 

t    'c'  c       <         €     e      t      c  c 


t    ,c    ,ct    ,e, tec 
c  ^'c 


DOM  JOKO   I,   KING  OF   PORTUGAL 
(1383-1433) 


The  Age  of  the  Heroes      29 

father.  As  a  king  he  could  avail  himself  of 
services  such  as  those  rendered  by  Nuno  Alvares 
Pereira,  the  immortal  hero  of  Aljubarrota,  who 
won  the  surname  of  ''  Holy  Constable,"^  and  the 
advice  of  his  chancellor,  Joao  das  Regras,  the 
great  Portuguese  legislator.  As  a  father,  this 
King  of  **  Good  Memory  "  had  the  satisfaction 
of  seeing  his  three  elder  sons,  Dom  Duarte,  Dom 
Pedro,  and  Dom  Henrique,  accompanied  even  by 
their  boy  brother,  Dom  Joao,  who  was  hardly 
fifteen,  and  Dom  Fernando,  who  was  not  yet 
thirteen,  who,  as  Christian  princes,  deemed  it  their 
duty  to  resume  hostilities  against  the  Infidels,  win 
their  golden  spurs  by  proceeding  to  Ceuta  and 
fighting  the  Moors  in  Morocco  itself.  And  the 
Conquest  of  Ceuta,  the  stronghold  of  Islamism, 
once  held  by  the  Vizigoths  and  recovered  by  the 
Moors  in  the  time  of  Dom  Roderick,  that  unhappy 
king  immortalised  by  Southey  in  his  poem, 
**  The  Last  of  the  Goths,"  was  a  great  event 
in  the  history  of  Portugal,  not  merely  as  the  first 
conquest  made  by  the  Portuguese  outside  their  own 

^  This  great  Portuguese  hero  is  now  awaiting  beatification.  The 
Order  of  Carmelites  that  had  in  his  honour  an  office  proper,  in  all 
the  Carmelite  provinces  of  Portugal  even  before  the  decree  of  Pope 
Urban  viii,  has  done  its  best  to  obtain  this  privilege,  and  a  few 
months  ago  the  Rev.  Fr.  Wessels,  Postulator  of  the  causes  of 
Carmelite  Saints,  stated  that  Rome  would,  in  a  year,  sanction  the 
beatification  of  Nuno  Alvares  Pereira. 


30        Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

territory,  but  as  to  the  magnitude  of  the  effects  by 
which  it  was  followed. 

Europe  had  at  this  time  witnessed  with  alarm 
the  extension  of  the  power  of  the  dreaded 
Crescent.  Every  Christian  Power  was  greatly 
incensed  and  had  sworn  dire  vengeance  against  the 
fanatics  of  the  Neo-Arab  religion.  Raymond  Lullio 
had,  towards  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
brought  out  his  famous  treatise,  "  De  Fine,"  where 
that  renowned  sage  of  Majorca  had  urged  Europe 
to  organise  her  forces  and  to  oppose  the  followers 
of  Mahomet  and  preserve  Europe  from  Turkish 
desolation,  if  not  from  conquest. 

In  the  history  of  that  epoch,  we  find  that  a 
Portuguese  prince  intimidated  a  Turkish  invader 
to  check  his  boundless  appetite  for  continental 
extension.  That  prince  was  Dom  Henrique,  one 
of  the  five  sons  of  King  John  i,  known  as  Prince 
Henry  the  Navigator.  The  Turk,  however, 
treated  contemptuously  the  request  made  by 
Prince  Henry.  But  the  Portuguese  prince  lost  no 
time  in  punishing  the  impudence  of  Muhammed  ii, 
and  resolved  to  bring  the  contemptuous  ruler 
to  his  feet.  His  mind  became  busy  with  a  plan 
to  which  he  devoted  his  life  and  fortune — namely, 
to  discover  a  new  way  to  India.  Convinced  that 
one  of  the  most  effective  means  of  crushing  the 


The  Age  of  the  Heroes      3i 

Moorish  ambition  was  to  destroy  the  medieval 
trade  routes  which  carried  on  a  traffic  that  ex- 
tended from  the  Mediterranean  to  India  and  from 
the  heart  of  Africa  to  Astrakan,  then  in  the  hands 
of  Arabian  and  Moorish  merchants,  he  gave  the 
Portuguese  nation  the  impetus  towards  that  grand 
development  which  assigned  to  her  for  ever  the 
indisputable  position  which  she  holds  in  the 
history  of  European  nations. 

Prince  Henry  the  Navigator,  whose  loftiness 
of  purpose  renders  him  an  inspiring  example,  and 
whose  motto,  **  Talent  de  bien  faire,"  was  verified 
in  all  his  actions,  invariably  directed  to  the 
advance  of  civilisation,  may  be  said  to  have 
created  a  memorable  era  in  the  history  of  his 
country.  It  was  at  his  observatory  at  Sagres, 
on  Cape  St.  Vincent,  and  under  his  guidance 
that  the  Portuguese  prepared  themselves  to  dis- 
cover new  lands ;  and  from  that  solitary  village 
in  the  Algarve,  **our  sailors,"  says  Pedro  Nunes, 
**  went  out  well  taught  and  provided  with  instru- 
ments and  rules  which  all  mapmakers  should 
know."  It  was  in  the  solitude  of  his  retirement 
that  Prince  Dom  Henrique  welcomed  foreign 
mariners  like  Cadamasto  and  De  Nolli,  and 
draughtsmen  like  Fra  Mauro  and  Andrea  Bianco, 
who  had  sought  his  protection  ;  and,  surrounding 


% 


32        Portagtcese  Monarchy 

himself  by  Arabian  astronomers,  not  to  mention 
the  geographer,  Master  Jacome,  brought  especi- 
ally from  Majorca,!  he  laid  the  foundation  of  a 
movement  that  immortalised  his  name.  And,  to 
use  Mr.  Major's  words,  *'  if,  from  the  pinnacles  of 
%Vs»  our  present  knowledge,  we  mark  on  the  world  of 
waters  those  light  tracks  which  have  led  to  the 
discovery  of  mighty  continents,  we  shall  find  them 
all  lead  back  to  the  same  inhospitable  point  of 
Sagres  and  to  the  motive  which  gave  it  a  royal 
inhabitant."  ^ 

The  discovery  of  Porto  Santo  by  Bartholomeu 
Perestrello  in  14 19,  and  the  rediscovery  of 
Madeira  by  Joao  Gonial ves  Zarco  and  Tristao 
Vaz,^  were  the  first-fruits  of  Prince  Henry's 
enterprise.  Soon  after,  the  Portuguese  had 
destroyed  the  belief  embodied  in  that  traditional 
rhyme,  **  Quem  passar  o  cabo  de  Nao  ou  tornard 
ou  nao,"*  by  doubling,  in  1422,  the  Cape  Noun, 
the  southernmost  African  promontory  yet  known 
and  hitherto  considered  an  impassable  barrier. 
Ten   years   later    Gon9alves    Velho    Cabral    had 

^  Vzde  Azurara,  Chronica  de  Guine\  cap.  xviii. 

2  Vide  The  life  of  Prince  Henry  of  Portugal^  surnamed  the 
Navigator^  and  its  Results,  by  R.  H.  Major,  F.S.A.,  London,  1868. 

3  This  was  a  rediscovery,  as  Robert  Macham  had  died  there 
more  than  half  a  century  before  (1344)- 

*  "  Who  pass  Cape  Non 

Must  turn  again  or  else  be  gone J^ 


c        « 

c       e   *    »    -c   c      c 

c     c     c    «    'e    c       « 

c  c      c    e^t  c    t      c 

t      c        c    c*    *      cc 


It 


PRINCE   HENRY,    "THE  NAVIGATOR 
(1394-1460) 


The  Age  of  the  Heroes       33 

touched  the  island  of  Santa  Maria  belonging 
to  the  Azores  Islands.  The  year  1434  had 
seen  Gil  Eannes  daringly  doubling  the  Cape 
Bojador  to  the  south  of  the  Morocco  coast, 
and  that  event  had  been  followed  by  the  dis- 
coveries of  the  island  of  Cape  Verde  and  the 
Guinea  Coast.  But  the  great  Prince  Henry, 
who  had  already  procured  a  bull  from  Pope 
Eugenius  iv,  which  guaranteed  to  the  Portuguese 
all  the  discoveries  between  Cape  Noun,  in  Morocco, 
and  India,  and  whose  services  to  learning  gained 
for  him  the  designation  of  **  Protector  of  the 
studies  of  Portugal,"  did  not  live  long  enough 
to  witness  the  realisation  of  his  plans.  He  died 
on  the  13th  November  1460.  Many  years, 
however,  elapsed  before  a  new  impulse  was 
given  to  geographical  discoveries  begun  by  him. 
Dom  Duarte,  or  Edward,  as  he  was  named 
after  Edward  iii  of  England,  his  eldest  brother, 
who  had  succeeded  King  John  i,  and  whose 
reign  will  be  associated  with  the  plague  which 
thinned  the  population  of  the  kingdom,  left 
the  throne  to  his  son,  Dom  Affonso  v,  during 
whose  minority  the  Regency  of  Dom  Pedro,  the 
second  son  of  John  i,  marked  an  event  in  the 
political  development  of  the  country.  But  Dom 
Affonso  V  did  very  little  to  encourage  maritime 
3 


34        Porttcgtiese  Monarchy 

discoveries.  In  the  first  years  of  his  reign  he 
embittered  the  existence  of  his  uncle,  whom 
the  people,  to  affirm  the  principle  of  their 
sovereignty,  had  chosen,  in  opposition  to  the 
wishes  of  the  widow  of  Dom  Duarte,  to  be 
the  Regent  of  the  Kingdom.  Yielding  to  the 
intrigues  of  the  Count  of  Barcellos,  the  natural 
son  of  King  John  i,  on  whom  Prince  Dom 
Pedro,  when  Regent,  had  conferred  the  title  of 
Duke  of  Braganga,  the  young  King  waged  war 
against  his  uncle.  His  vengeance  had  been 
such  that,  not  satisfied  with  seeing  Dom  Pedro 
fall  dead  in  the  encounter  of  Alfarrobeira,  he 
had  ordered  the  corpse  of  the  brave  and  learned 
brother  of  Prince  Henry  to  be  left  on  the 
battlefield!  Afterwards,  he  turned  his  attention 
to  Africa,  and  his  victories  obtained  him  the 
surname  of  the  "African."  In  his  crusading 
fervour  he  struck  a  new  coinage — the  crusado, 
so  called  because  of  the  cross  on  its  reverse — 
and  he  became  busy  with  expeditions  to  the 
kingdoms  of  Fez  and  Morocco  to  avenge  the 
disaster  of  Tangiers  and  the  injury  lately  done 
to  Portugal  by  the  Moors  in  the  person  of 
Prince  Ferdinand,  who  had  been  delivered  over 
to  the  Infidel  in  pledge  for  Ceuta,  and  who  had 
met  with  an  ignominious  death  after  a  captivity 


The  Age  of  the  Heroes      35 

of  a  few  years — a  prince  so  noble  that  his 
resignation  won  him  the  title  of  the  **  Constant 
Prince,"  of  whom  even  the  King  of  Fez  could 
not  help  saying  that  "if  he  had  been  a  Moslem 
he  ought  to  have  been  worshipped  as  a  saint." 
Affonso  v's  pretensions  to  the  throne  of  Castille, 
which  resulted  in  the  complete  defeat  of  the 
Portuguese  army  at  Toro  and  the  entire 
submission  to  Ferdinand  of  Castille  of  those 
Castillian  nobles  who  espoused  Princess  Joanna's 
cause,  had  also  left  him  very  little  time  to 
continue  the  geographical  work  of  his  uncle. 

It  was  not,  therefore,  till  his  son,  John  ii, 
ascended  the  throne  that  the  great  era  of 
maritime  exploration  began  in  Portugal.  This 
King  of  Portugal,  yielding  to  the  influence  of 
some  of  his  councillors,  made,  of  course,  the  great 
mistake  of  dismissing  Columbus  as  a  visionary, 
and  thus  let  a  neighbouring  nation  share  in 
the  triumphs  of  a  man  who,  to  quote  the  words 
of  Ferdinand,  the  son  of  Columbus,  in  his  Life 
of  the  Admiral,  "began  to  think  that  if  men 
could  sail  so  far  south  one  might  also  sail  west 
and   find   lands  there."  ^      But  the  same    King, 

^  Christopher  Columbus'  stay  in  Portugal  was  from  1470- 1484, 
during  which  time  he  served  in  the  Portuguese  expedition  to  the 
coast  of  Guinea.  He  married  the  daughter  of  the  famous  Bartho- 
lomeu  Perestrello ;  and  Las  Casas,  in  his  History  of  the  Indies^ 


36        Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

who  was   to  be  one  of  the  most  highly   gifted 
kings     of     Portugal,     encouraged    by    the    dis- 
coveries  of    Pedro    de    Covilham,    who,   in    his 
dispatches  to  the  King  of  Portugal    sent   from 
Cairo,  had  pointed  out  that  the  East  might  be 
reached   from    the    south    of    Africa,    began    to 
conceive  the   possibility    of  reaching    India  and 
discovering   the    realms   of    Prester    John — that 
mysterious  Christian  potentate  supposed  to  have 
his  court  somewhere  in   Central  Africa.      Thus 
Bartholomeu    Dias   rounded   the  cape  which  he 
called  Cabo    Tormentoso  or  Stormy    Cape,  but 
vMich  John  ii,  as  if  anticipating  the  success  of 
the    coming    expeditions,    named   the    Cape    of 
Good  Hope.     By  this  one  discovery,  which  had 
been   the    cherished   vision    of  the   long   life   of 
Prince    Henry,    a  great  fact  was   accomplished. 
It   opened   to    modern    Europe   the  wonders   of 
another   hemisphere.       "  As   soon   as    the   news 
reached  Venice,"  Priuli  writes  in  his  diary,  "the 
population  was  thunderstruck,  and  the  more  wise 
among   them    regarded   the    news   as   the  worst 
they  could  have  received." 

*But   most   of  the    discoveries   and    conquests 
of  the    Portuguese  were,    however,   reserved   to 

refers  to  Columbus  having  gained  information  from  Perestrello's 
map  and  papers. 


The  Age  of  the  Heroes      37 

be  effected  in  the  reigns  of  his  cousin,  Manuel  i, 
the  Great,  as  he  is  surnamed,  and  of  John  iii, 
his  successor. 

We  have  now  arrived  at  the  most  brilliant 
period  of  the  history  of  Portugal,  when  she 
sent  forth  a  host  of  her  sturdy  sons,  year  by 
year,  to  discover  new  lands,  and  she  produced 
men  such  as  Vasco  da  Gama,  Dom  Francisco 
d'  Almeida,  Dom  Affonso  d'  Albuquerque,  and 
Dom  Joao  de  Castro — men  who  were  destined 
to  make  her  history  for  ever  glorious. 

The  two  successful  voyages  of  Columbus 
seemed  to  have  urged  the  Portuguese  to  con- 
tinue that  great  work  begun  by  Vaz  Teixeira 
and  Gongalves  Zarco.  The  discovery  of  a  new 
way  to  India  in  1498,  when,  five  and  a  half 
years  after  the  voyage  of  Columbus,  Vasco  da 
Gama  crossed  the  Indian  Ocean  and  cast  anchor 
at  Calicut,  was  followed  by  the  discovery  of 
Brazil,  or  the  lands  of  Santa  Cruz,  or  Holy 
Cross,  as  they  were  called,  by  Pedro  Alvares 
Cabral,  and  of  Labrador  by  Caspar  Corte  Real 
in  1500.  A  year  later,  Joao  de  Nova  Castello  dis- 
covered the  islands  of  St.  Helena  and  Ascension, 
after  which  came  the  discovery,  by  Tristao  da 
Cunha  in  1506,  of  an  island  which  is  still  called 
after  him.     The  same  year  Ruy  Pereira  Coutinho 


38        Porttigtcese  Monarchy 

explored  Madagascar  and  the  Mauritius  Islands, 
and  a  year  after  Lonren^o  d'  Almeida  found  his 
way  to  the  Maldive  Islands.  Meanwhile,  great 
events  were  taking  place  beyond  the  seas. 
Vasco  da  Gama  had  paid  a  second  visit  to 
India.  The  Portuguese  legions  had  overrun 
some  of  the  most  civilised  countries — countries 
possessing  a  great  literature  and  in  an  advanced 
political  state.  The  King  of  Portugal  had 
assumed  the  title  of  *'  Lord  of  the  navigation, 
conquest,  and  commerce  of  Ethiopia,  Persia, 
Arabia,  and  India,"  which  Pope  Alexander  vi 
had  confirmed  to  him  by  a  bull  in  1502. 
Viceroys  had  been  dispatched  to  the  East  with 
instructions  to  build  fortresses  and  to  secure  the 
Portuguese  supremacy  beyond  the  seas. 

The  Portuguese  explorers,  however,  in  their 
enterprising  spirit,  pressing  forward  and  drawing 
the  world  after  them  in  their  course,  had  dis- 
covered new  lands.  In  151 1  Francisco  Serrao 
and  Antonio  d'  Abreu  set  out  to  explore  the 
Molucca  Islands,  and  discovered  Java,  Banda, 
Amboine,  and  Madura,  and  soon  after,  Pedro 
Mascarenhas  had  discovered  the  isle  of  Bourbon. 
Four  years  later  Duarte  Coelho  had  found  his 
way  into  Siam.  In  15 17  Perez  d'  Andrade 
arrived    at    the   islands    of    Poulo    Condor,    and 


•     •  !   cI  «    ,  5 


•    c*.**t    {         '      - 


,  *   e  e   •       •  « 


♦^ 


y/)f';.: 


^/^ 


VASCO   DA  GAMA 

(1460-1524) 


The  Age  of  the  Heroes      39 

in  1520  established  himself  in  Canton.  The 
same  year  Magellan  rounded  South  America 
through  the  straits  that  bear  his  name,  and 
sailed  across  the  Pacific  to  the  Philippines, 
where  he  met  his  death.  The  discoveries  did 
not  stop  here.^  A  few  more  followed.  Thus 
this  small  nation,  with  barely  four  millions 
of  inhabitants,  became  the  theatre  of  the  most 
remarkable  events  which  have  influenced  the 
history  of  mankind. 

The  greater  glory  which  Portugal  had  acquired 
as  the  result  of  her  geographical  discoveries  and 
conquests  in  the  East,  had  almost  eclipsed  the 
recollections  of  her  ancient  triumphs  against 
the  Moors.  Nor  were  the  intellectual  exertions 
of  Portugal  less  conspicuous  than  its  martial 
achievements.  The  same  age  which  witnessed 
the  expedition  of  Vasco  da  Gama,  the  conquests 
of  Albuquerque,  and  the  bravery  of  Duarte 
Pacheco,  beheld  the  advancement  of  learning 
which  was  represented  by  Gil  Vicente,  the 
Portuguese    dramatist,    who    appeared    many    a 

^  In  1542  the  adventurer,  Femao  Mendes  Pinto,  discovered  the 
archipelago  of  Japan. 

In  the  year  1861  R.  H.  Major  laid  before  the  Society  of 
Antiquaries,  and  thereby  informed  the  scientific  world  for  the  first 
time,  that  the  island  of  Australia  was  discovered  in  i6oi  by 
Manuel  Goedinho  de  Herdia,  a  Portuguese  navigator. 


40        Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

year  before  Shakespeare  or  Calderon  and 
whose  Autos  are  a  glory  of  Portuguese 
literature ;  Bernardim  RIbeiro,  and  Christovam 
Falcao,  the  founders  of  the  romantic  pastoral 
school  which  is  representative  of  national  feeling ; 
Garcia  de  Rezende,  the  compiler  of  the 
Cancioneiro  Geral,  and  Antonio  Ferreira,  the 
Portuguese  Horace,  who  produced  **  Ignez  de 
Castro  " — the  earliest  tragedy  of  modern  Europe. 
All  these  facts,  which  could  have  been  produced 
only  by  a  patriotism  that  becomes  possible 
when  a  community  of  feelings  gives  common 
interests,  stirred  the  national  life  of  the 
Portuguese. 

The  Portuguese  had  grown  into  a  great  nation 
rich  in  great  personalities — a  nation  of  great  sailors, 
explorers,  and  generals.  But  if  that  period  of 
Portuguese  history,  replete  with  such  great  and 
heroic  actions,  was  adorned  by  so  many  virtues,  it 
was  also  darkened  by  many  crimes. 

What  scenes  of  religious  fervour,  what 
revolutions,  what  paroxysms  of  rage  and  resent- 
ment are  not  involved  in  the  details  of  this 
period ! 

With  the  discovery  of  a  new  way  to  India,  and 
with  the  rapid  growth  of  the  Portuguese  power  in 
the    East,    Portugal    became   one   of    the    most 


The  Age  of  the  Heroes      4i 

powerful  world  empires  of  history.  Lisbon  had 
become  the  entrepot  which  the  Italian  republics 
had  so  long  held  for  Eastern  and  Indian  trade. 
During  this  period,  to  quote  an  impartial  opinion, 
"  Portugal  enjoyed  its  maximum  wealth  and 
greatness,  and  for  a  while  Lisbon  remained  the 
great  European  emporium  of  Indian  goods.  Its 
warehouses  were  filled  with  commodities  exceed- 
ing both  in  variety  and  in  amount  those  formerly 
brought  to  Europe  by  way  of  Suez  and  the 
Mediterranean,  comprising  Indian  stuffs,  silks, 
cotton,  spices  and  pearls,  ivory  and  gold  dust, 
sugar  from  St.  Thomas,  wine  from  Madeira,  salt, 
and  southern  fruits.  Dutch,  German,  and 
English  merchants  made  it  their  rendezvous  and 
took  away  costly  freights."  ^ 

A  period  had  undoubtedly  arrived  in  the 
destiny  of  the  nation  which  seemed  to  require 
the  presence  of  some  great  mind  to  mould  its 
affairs. 

Manuel  i,  though  inheritor  of  a  great  throne, 
did  not  possess  the  virtues  of  his  ancestors. 
Vain,  and  prone  to  private  magnificence,  his  first 
thought,  when  he  became  king,  had  been  to 
ascend  the  throne  of  Castille.     It  was  to  attain 

^  Vide  The   Growth  and   Vicissitudes  of  Commerce  from  B.C. 
iSoo-A.D.  1789,  by  John  Yeates,  p.  179. 


42        Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

this  object  that  he  had  wished  to  marry  the 
Infanta  Isabella  of  Castille,  widow  of  his  nephew, 
Prince  Alfonso  of  Portugal,  who  had  gone  back 
to  her  country  and  contemplated  taking  the  veil. 
And  to  please  the  bigotry  and  intolerance  of  the 
eldest  daughter  of  King  Ferdinand  of  Aragon 
and  Queen  Isabella  of  Castille,  Manuel  i,  re- 
gardless of  the  impolicy  as  well  as  the  injustice, 
had  issued  an  edict  for  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews 
from  Portugal.  Not  only  was  an  edict  published 
ordering  them  to  leave  the  country,  and  every 
conveyance  cunningly  withdrawn  from  them, 
but  Manuel  i,  fancying  himself  an  up-to-date 
Herod,  had  ordered  every  Jewish  child  under 
fourteen  years  of  age  to  be  taken  away  from  its 
parents  and  brought  up  as  a  Christian  !  And  on 
the  Easter  Sunday  of  the  year  1496  Portugal 
witnessed  one  of  the  most  heart-rending  scenes 
ever  beheld,  when  Jewish  mothers,  in  their  des- 
peration, laid  hand  upon  their  own  children,  threw 
their  babes  into  the  rivers  and  wells,  and  took 
their  own  lives !  But  this  is  not  all.  The 
accusations  of  sectarian  bigotry  were  greedily 
swallowed  by  the  populace ;  and  while  the  King 
was  given  over  to  hunting,  a  massacre  of  Jews 
was  taking  place  in  Lisbon — a  massacre  which,  for 
savage  and  bloodthirsty  cruelty,  perhaps  beats  any 


The  Age  of  the  Heroes      43 

such  attempt.  The  comparative  exemption  of 
the  Jews  from  the  plague  that  then  broke  out  had 
been  enough  to  make  them  suspected.  They 
were  accused  of  being  the  cause  of  plague.  The 
sincerity  of  their  conversion  to  Christianity  was 
questioned,  and  thousands  of  Jews  were  dragged 
upon  scaffolds,  erected  at  Rocio  and  Ribeira,  which 
were  set  on  fire,  and  they  were  hanged  or 
hacked  to  pieces  by  the  fanatical  mob.  Their 
women  were  violated  and  subjected  to  every 
outrage,  and  their  homes  made  desolate !  Such 
savage  ferocity  is  too  appalling  to  be  explained 
on  the  usual  principles  of  human  nature,  and 
Portugal  must  share  the  disgrace  of  such  inhuman 
crimes  which  were  committed  by  a  people  that 
seemed  to  have  lost  sight  altogether  of  that  spirit 
of  tolerance  that  pervaded  the  whole  political 
system  of  the  days  of  their  early  kings,  like 
Sancho  ii  and  his  successors,  when  Jews  and 
their  religion  were  on  no  account  thought  sub- 
versive of  morals  or  incompatible  with  the 
prosperity  of  the  nation,  and  the  first  Portuguese 
legal  code,  **  A  ordena9ao  Affonslna,"  set  out 
plainly,  for  the  nation,  laws  that  regulated  the 
relations  between  all  classes  and  discouraged  all 
fanatical  hatreds.  The  absolute  political  equality 
of  the  Jews  with  the  rest  of  the  nation  was  such 


44        PorttigtJtese  Monarchy 

that  we  find  Portuguese  kings,  like  Dom  Diniz 
and  Dom  Fernando,  entrusting  the  high  posts  of 
Inspector  of  Public  Revenues  to  two  Jews,  both 
bearing  the  name  of  Judas,  Dom  Pedro  i  creating 
Moses  Navarro  "  morgado  "  ^  of  Santarem,  and 
kings  John  i  and  John  ii  employing  Jewish 
physicians  at  the  Court ! 

King  Manuel's  hopes,  however,  were  soon 
baulked  of  their  fulfilment.  He  failed  in  his 
attempt  to  annex  the  Crown  of  Castille  to  that  of 
Portugal.  Manuel  married  Isabella,  but  she  died 
when  giving  birth  to  a  son,  who,  to  his  greatest 
distress,  also  died. 

Disappointed  in  his  hopes  and  wounded  in  his 
vanity,  he  turned  his  attention  to  the  wealth 
which  would  flow  in  from  the  spoils  of  con- 
quests in  the  East,  and  he  lost  no  time  in 
dispatching  royal  ships  to  the  land  of  promise 
beyond  the  Atlantic  to  fetch  Eastern  and  specially 
Indian  luxuries.  He  was  so  much  preoccupied 
with  the  prospects  of  wealth  before  him  that, 
despite  the  little  influence  Antonio  Carneiro,  his 
able  minister,  exercised  over  him,  he  had  not  the 
constancy  steadily  to  adhere  to  his  minister's 
policy.  He  had  reached  so  high  a  point  of 
ambition  and  vanity  that  he  devised  all  means  to 
*  He  who  possesses  an  entailed  estate. 


The  Age  of  the  Heroes      45 

impress   the   world   with    Portugal's   wealth   and 
power.     To   supply    this    demand    new   and   ex- 
traordinary efforts   became  requisite.     And   woe 
to    the    viceroy    who    did    not    subordinate    his 
political    plans    to    the    commercial    objects    of 
King    Manuel !     His   famous    mission    to    Pope 
Leo  X,  the   splendour  of  which   bears   no   com- 
parison even  with  the  pageantry  of  the  Field  of 
the   Cloth   of  Gold,    when    the   whole   of   Italy 
flocked  to  Rome  to  see  the  great  Indian  elephant 
covered  with   tapestries  and  jewels,    which  was 
presided  over  by  Tristao  da  Cunha,  was  one  of 
his  many  devices  to   produce  effects  that  would 
remind  Europe  of  the  greatness  of  the  Portuguese 
monarch.      This   inordinate  vanity  was  perhaps 
enhanced    beyond   measure   in    Manuel    by   the 
consciousness  of  absolute   power.     He  was   the 
product  of  the  age.     His  ancestor,  John  ii,  though 
he   won    the   surname   of   **  the    Perfect    King," 
following  the  general  tendencies  of  his  epoch,  had 
deprived  the  nobles  of  their   rights  and  posses- 
sions.    By  erecting  the  scaffold  on  the  Praga  of 
Evora    wherein    the    Duke    of    Bragan^a,    the 
haughtiest  and  the  wealthiest  nobleman  not  only 
in    Portugal    but   in   the   whole   Peninsula,    was 
hanged,  and   by  decapitating   the   heads  of  the 
representatives  of  an   aristocracy  with   a  public 


46        Portttgtiese  Monarchy 

spirit  and  a  public  opinion  of  its  own,  he  had 
prepared  the  way  for  a  complete  change 
in  the  monarchy  and  made  it  absolute.  And 
in  the  reign  of  Manuel  this  absolutism  as- 
sumed force  and  definiteness.  Manuel  grew  up, 
therefore,  in  an  atmosphere  of  servility  and 
adulation.  The  nobles  having  abdicated  all  the 
dignity  and  self-respect  of  their  class,  intrigued 
for  court  posts  and,  by  dint  of  court  interest, 
contrived  to  appropriate  to  themselves  a  large 
share  of  such  power  and  wealth  as  the  sovereign 
had  to  bestow.  And  Manuel,  having  found  a 
congenial  atmosphere  in  the  adulation  of  the 
Portuguese  nobles,  rewarded  them  for  it.  Such 
was  the  state  of  affairs  which  prevailed  no  less 
in  the  ideas  of  noblemen  than  in  the  details 
of  government.  And  its  influence  extended  to 
affairs  in  the  East,  where  the  Portuguese,  through 
the  energy  and  determination  of  such  men  as 
Dom  Francisco  d'  Almeida  and  Affonso  d'  Albu- 
querque, surnamed  the  **  Great,"  had  succeeded 
in  establishing  their  supremacy.  The  two  great 
viceroys  were  victims  of  Manuel's  selfishness. 
Perverted  imaginations  had  pictured  to  him  their 
imperial  policy  as  overbearing  and  insolent,  and 
the  King,  fearing  perhaps  that  they  stood  in  his 
way  of  ambition,  unscrupulously  dismissed  them. 


The  Age  of  the  Heroes      47 

Dom  Francisco  d'  Almeida,  the  first  Viceroy 
of  India,  so  famous  for  the  first  naval  war  in  the 
Indian  Sea,  which  destroyed  the  powerful  Egyp- 
tian fleet  and  the  artillery  of  Venice  specially 
sent  to  India  to  oppose  the  Portuguese  in  the 
East,  was  so  intrigued  that  his  early  death  ^ 
perhaps  saved  him  from  the  disgrace  awaiting 
him  at  home.  But  when  we  question  if  there 
be  many  parallels  in  the  history  of  successful  rule 
and  statesmanship  to  that  offered  in  the  career 
of  Albuquerque,  we  see  how  great  was  the  injustice 
done  to  the  services  rendered  by  him  to  his  un- 
grateful country.  The  great  Albuquerque,  who, 
within  the  short  period  of  five  years  (i  507-11), 
had  succeeded  in  establishing  the  Portuguese 
supremacy  in  the  East — he  who  had  conquered 
Goa,  made  himself  master  of  Aden,  Ormuz,  and 
captured  Socotra  and  Malacca,  the  key  of  the 
navigation  of  the  Indian  archipelago,  and  thus  let 
his  country  appropriate  the  trade  of  the  East — 
was  made  to  suffer  the  deep  humiliation  of  being 
asked  to  resign  the  post  of  Viceroy  of  India ! 

The  most  infamous  and  the  most  unscrupulous 

^  He  was  killed  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  on  his  return  from 
India.  He  put  into  the  Bay  of  Saldanha,  and  there  a  quarrel 
ensued  between  his  attendants  and  the  Kaffirs  which  resulted  in 
the  Viceroy  being  killed  with  fifty  of  his  followers. 

Vide  Chronica  del  Ret  Emanuel  por  Damido  de  Goes^  segunda 
parte,  ch.  xiv. 


48        Portuguese  Monarchy 

charge  against  Albuquerque  was  that  he  was 
too  fond  of  engrossing  power.  The  Httle- 
minded  Portuguese,  who  were  carrying  their 
intrigues  within  the  royal  precincts  and  inciting 
a  pusillanimous  king  to  dismiss  his  greatest 
warrior  and  statesman,  were  unable  to  realise 
the  far-reaching  effects  of  Albuquerque's  imperial 
policy^  that  attests  his  profound  respect  for 
political  morality  and  his  knowledge  of  political 
obligations.  Albuquerque  had  been  entrusted 
by  his  Sovereign  with  the  scheme  of  excluding 
all  other  nations  from  participating  in  the  advan- 
tages of  commerce  with  the  East.  But  supremacy 
in  trade  involves  military  and  naval  efficiency. 
And  armies  and  fleets  require  men.  Albuquerque, 
therefore,  by  inducing  as  many  Portuguese  as 
possible    to    marry    native  women,  was   perhaps 

*  The  union  of  judicial  and  revenue  functions,  which  is  to-day 
adopted  by  the  British  in  India,  had  been  devised  by  Albuquerque 
in  his  scheme  of  settlement  of  Goa. 

The  co-operation  of  the  natives  of  India  with  European  officials 
to  conduct  the  affairs  of  the  country  was  also  a  part  of  his  policy 
(vide  Commentaries  of  Albuquerque^  vol.  ii.  pp.  125-129). 

He  did  away  with  the  custom  of  Suttee — the  burning  of  the 
widow — a  custom  which,  in  British  India,  was  not  abolished  until 
1829,  when  Lord  William  Bentinck  was  Governor  of  India  (vide 
Commentaries  of  Albuquerque^  pt.  ii.  ch.  xx.). 

These  commentaries  were  compiled  by  his  illegitimate  son,  Braz 
d'  Albuquerque,  from  the  dispatches  of  the  great  Albuquerque 
forwarded  to  King  Manuel.  They  were  translated  into  English, 
from  the  Portuguese  edition  of  1774  by  Walter  de  Grey  Birch.. 


■••■f 


^ 


utf 


AFFONSO  D"  ALBUQUERQUE 

(^453-1515) 


The  Age  of  the  Heroes      49 

taking  the  most  obvious  measures  of  precaution 
dictated  by  the  conditions  of  the  mother  country 
— a  scheme  which  he  thought  would  create  sym- 
pathies and  suggest  amalgamation.  And  his 
aim  in  that  policy  must  have  been  to  form 
subjects  of  Portuguese  blood  proud  of  their 
allegiance  to  the  Portuguese  throne  and  their 
right  to  the  Portuguese  flag. 

To  found  such  a  policy  Albuquerque  evinced  a 
strong  spirit  of  independence.  And  it  cost  him 
his  dismissal  from  the  Viceroyalty  of  India. 

The  great  Viceroy,  however,  did  not  survive 
long  the  ignominy  to  which  he  was  subjected  by 
his  King.  He  died  of  grief,  and  his  last  words 
were :  *'  In  bad  repute  with  men  because  of  the 
King,  and  in  bad  repute  with  the  King  because  of 
the  men,  it  were  well  that  I  were  gone."^  Those 
words,  uttered  by  Albuquerque  on  his  death-bed, 
must  have  been  a  veritable  thunderbolt  upon  the 
imperial  head  and  the  ungrateful  country ! 

The  consequences,  however,  of  this  time-serving 
policy  were  felt  in  the  days  of  John  iii,  whose 
reign  marked  the  acme  of  Portuguese  power  and 
the  beginning  of  its  decay.  This  reign  witnessed 
the  establishment  of  the  Portuguese  at  Java  and 
Borneo   and   the   expeditions    of    Menezes    and 

^  Vide  Commentaries  of  Albuquerque^  vol.  iv.  p.  175. 
4 


50        Porttigtcese  Monarchy 

Antonio  de  Motta  to  New  Guinea  and  to  Japan 
respectively,  and  could  boast  of  an  Empire  com- 
prising no  less  than  thirty-two  foreign  kingdoms 
and  four  hundred  and  thirty-three  garrison  towns 
subject  to  the  Portuguese  crown.  But  the  Portu- 
guese ascendancy  in  the  East  was  tottering  to  a 
fall,  and  the  dismemberment  of  the  Portuguese 
Empire  was  making  rapid  progress.  After  the 
death  of  the  great  Albuquerque  one  or  two 
conquests  were  made  by  his  successors.  The 
Moluccas  were  taken  in  1522  and  the  island  of 
Diu  in  1546.  But  most  of  the  governors  and 
viceroys  who  were  sent  to  India  in  those  days 
contented  themselves  with  becoming  the  mere 
instrument  of  bartering  the  produce  of  the 
industry  and  ingenuity  of  the  natives.  The 
administration  of  India  had  become  a  hotbed 
of  knavery  and  corruption.  Imperialism,  which 
Albuquerque  and  some  of  his  successors  fenced 
round  with  just  measures,  was  now  the  plea  for 
every  exercise  of  oppression  and  infringement 
of  human  freedom.  And  "  the  Hindoos  and 
Mohammedans,"  when  oppressed  by  the  suc- 
cessors of  Albuquerque,  **  used  to  go  to  Goa  to 
his  tomb  and  make  offerings  of  flowers  and  oil 
for  his  lamp,  praying  him  to  do  them  justice."^ 

*  Vide  Commenta?ies  of  Albuquerque^  vol.  iv.  pp.  199-201. 


The  Age  of  the  Heroes      5i 

The  series  of  imprisonments^  which  degraded 
the  days  following  the  dismissal  of  Albuquerque 
accentuate  the  symptoms  of  the  decadence  of  a 
great  nation  that  had  become  corrupted  by  the 
wealth  of  the  East  Indies. 

The  generation  of  Portuguese  that  followed 
the  days  of  Prince  Henry,  Vasco  da  Gama,  and 
Albuquerque  were  unable  to  realise  with  adequate 
intensity  the  grandeur  and  sanctity  of  ideals 
that  lay  behind  that  series  of  events  that  lent  a 
forcible  impulse  to  commerce,  navigation,  and 
foundation  of  colonies. 

The  nation  immersed  itself  in  material  facts. 
The  inspiring  poetry  of  religion  was  destroyed, 
and  the  peaceful  message  of  Christ  was  turned 
into  a  bloodstained  law  of  persecution.  Coupled 
with  the  loss  of  prestige  in  the  East,  in  Africa, 
in  rapid  succession,  followed  one  loss  of  territory 
after   another.     Azamor,   Arzila,   Alcacer-Seguir, 

^  Duarte  Menezes  (1521),  Governor  of  India  for  three  years,  had 
to  return  under  imprisonment ;  Lopo  Vaz  de  Sampaio  (1526)  met 
with  the  same  fate  after  being  governor  for  over  three  years  ; 
Nuno  da  Cunha,  who  was  governor  for  more  than  nine  years, 
died  in  his  chains  on  the  way  home  ;  Martim  Afifonso  de  Sousa 
(1541),  governor  for  three  and  a  half  years,  was  incarcerated; 
Antonio  Moniz  Barreto  had  to  return  a  prisoner  after  three 
years  of  governorship;  the  Count  of  Vidigueira  (1596)  was  im- 
prisoned and  ordered  home;  Ayres  Saldanha  (1600)  came  home 
a  captive ;  Jeronymo  d'  Azevedo  (1612)  died  in  prison ;  the 
second  Count  of  Vidigueira  (1622)  had  to  return  under  im- 
prisonment. 


52        Portttgaese  Monarchy 

and  other  towns  held  by  Portugal  in  the  north  of 
Africa  were  being  abandoned  with  the  prodigality 
of  a  spendthrift.  And  as  the  slave  trade  in- 
creased the  African  colonies  lost  the  attachment 
and  respect  of  the  natives. 

But  John  III,  though  a  bad  administrator,  a 
fact  confirmed  by  the  records  of  the  proceedings 
of  the  Cortes  of  1525  and  1535,  and  an  in- 
strument in  the  hands  of  his  minister,  Pedro 
d*  Alca90va  Carneiro,  son  of  the  famous  Antonio 
Carneiro,  minister  of  Manuel  i,  exhibited  in 
an  age  of  signal  corruption  a  perfect  cleanliness 
of  hands.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  cares, 
necessities,  and  the  circumstances  of  the  moment 
conspired  from  early  youth  to  make  him  the  man 
he  was.  When  he  died,  the  Treasury  was  much 
exhausted.  The  conquests  in  the  East  had  not 
only  deprived  the  country  of  its  best  part  of 
population,  but  had  also  expended  her  resources 
almost  to  the  verge  of  exhaustion.  The  accumu- 
lation of  wealth  of  the  East  Indies,  without  a 
corresponding  increase  of  domestic  industry,  had 
corrupted  the  true  sources  of  national  prosperity, 
and  the  State,  in  debt  and  crushed  by  an  ever- 
recurring  deficit,  was  forced  to  borrow  at  ruinous 
rates  from  Flanders.  The  condition  of  the 
National  Exchequer  was  such   that  Cortes  had 


The  Age  of  the  Heroes      53 

to  be  convened  In  1525  to  devise  means  to  meet 
the  payment  of  the  800,000  crusados  agreed  to 
be  paid  to  Charles  v  of  Castille  as  the  dowry 
of  Infanta  Dona  Isabella,  sister  of  the  King  of 
Portugal. 

But  this  was  not  the  only  evil.  The  very 
succession  to  the  throne  was  involved  in  the  most 
mischievous  uncertainty.  John  in  had  allowed 
a  clause  in  the  marriage  contract  of  his  daughter 
Dona  Maria,  first  wife  of  Philip  11  of  Castille, 
by  which  their  sons  had  a  right  to  succeed  to  the 
throne  of  Portugal  in  the  event  of  the  reigning 
sovereign  of  Portugal  dying  without  any  issue. 
Hence  the  eagerness  with  which  the  birth  of 
King  Sebastian,  the  grandson  of  John  iii,  was 
expected.  The  tide  of  loyalty  and  affection 
waiting  to  flow  in  favour  of  John  iii's  successor 
made  him  later  a  favourite  of  the  nation.  When 
Sebastian  was  born  "the  whole  nation  was  mad 
with  loyal  excitement."^  It  was  indeed  a  dark 
hour  for  Portugal,  and  rarely  has  a  great  nation 
been  through  such  a  crisis.  Phijip  11,  in  the 
plenitude  of  his  malignant  greatness,  was  count- 
ing every  minute  to  put  in  his  claim  and  subject 
Portugal  to  the  Spanish  crown.  But  the  aversion 
of  the  Portuguese  to  Philip,  and  one  that  cannot 

^  Vide  Fr.  Bernardo  da  Cruz — Chronica  de  elrei  D.  Sebasticlo. 


54        Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

too  often  be  repeated,  was  that  he  was  a  Spaniard. 
With  the  birth  of  King  Sebastian  people,  there- 
fore, thought  the  troubles  were  at  an  end.  They 
were  but  begun. 

King  Sebastian  ascended  the  throne  in  an  age 
barren  in  great  events  and  heroic  characters,  but 
an  age  teeming  in  no  ordinary  measure  with  the 
germs  both  of  intellectual  and  material  develop- 
ment.     The    policy    of    Dom    Constantino    de 
Bragan^a,  the  Viceroy  of  India,  had  made  reason- 
ably certain    that   the   change   contemplated   by 
him  would  be  an  improvement  on  affairs  in  the 
East.     But  the  royal  youth,   instead  of  turning 
his    attention   to   the    redress   of   abuses    in    the 
administration  of  the   country,  was  too  anxious 
of  rousing  the  crusading  spirit  of  his  country  to 
wage  war   against   the    Moor.     To  attack  Con- 
stantinople, to  free  Palestine  or  conquer  Morocco, 
was  his  golden  dream.     He  was  convinced  that 
he   had   to   place   the   cornice  on  the  edifice  of 
which  his  ancestors  John  i,  Alfonso  v,  and  John  ii 
were  privileged  to  raise   the  pillars.      And   the 
people,  sick  of  gloom  and  disappointment,  were 
as  mad   to  support  him   as   he   was  to  believe 
that  he  was  in  a  position  to  check  the  ambition 
of  the    Moor    in    Africa.     Sebastian    no    doubt 
possessed  the  martial  spirit  of  his  ancestors,  but 


The  Age  of  the  Heroes       55 

had  not  the  poHtical  virtues  of  those  men.  He 
was  too  impatient  and  too  doggedly  convinced 
of  the  practicabiHty  of  his  plans  to  be  really  fit 
to  undertake  an  African  expedition.  But  he 
would  listen  to  nobody.  Dom  Joao  de  Mascare- 
nhas  did  have  sufficient  courage  to  speak  out 
openly  against  the  African  expedition  of  King 
Sebastian  and  remind  the  young  King  to  take 
along  with  him  "a  sheet  to  bury  the  kingdom." 
And  Sebastian  called  the  veteran  defender  of 
Diu  "a  coward."  Martim  Affonso  de  Sousa, 
who  had  been  Governor  of  India,  was  seen 
shouting  in  the  Royal  Palace  and  asking  why, 
if  it  was  usual  to  tie  raving  lunatics,  they  had  let 
loose  this  one  ?  Not  more  effectual  were  the 
dying  appeals  of  the  heart-broken  Queen  to  her 
grandson  nor  the  advice  and  remonstrances  of 
the  Pope.  Nothing  seems  to  have  stood  in  his 
way.  To  supply  the  deficiences  of  Portuguese 
levies  he  imported  soldiers  from  Flanders,  Spain, 
and  Italy.  From  Germany  alone  he  had  3000 
soldiers.  He  even  made  use  of  the  services  of 
the  Italian  troops,  commanded  by  the  Irishman 
Thomas  Sternmile,^  that  had  touched  Lisbon  on 
their  way  to  Ireland  to  help  the  Catholics  against 
the  English  Protestants.     So  sure  was  Sebastian 

^  Who  was  created  Marquis  of  Leinster  by  the  Pope, 


56        Portagtiese  Monarchy 

of  his  victory  that  he  was  carrying  with  him  a 
rich  crown  specially  designed  for  the  first  Christian 
Emperor  of  Morocco  !  Gorgeous  uniforms,  richly 
embroidered  and  trimmed  with  the  finest  lace, 
had  been  supplied  to  the  guard  that  was  to  escort 
him  on  his  victory,  and  the  court  preacher  who 
was  accompanying  him  had  received  instruc- 
tions to  have  his  sermon  ready  for  delivery  on 
the  day  of  the  would-be  Emperor  of  Morocco's 
triumphal  procession !  Even  the  royal  banner 
displayed,  for  the  first  time,  an  imperial  crown 
yet  to  be  won. 

Such  a  delusion  could  not  last  long.  The  great 
disaster  of  Alcacer-Kebir,  on  the  4th  of  August 
1578,  proved  how  utterly  frantic  was  King 
Sebastian's  plan.  Of  about  16,000  men  who,  in 
June  of  that  year,  sailed  for  Africa,  fifty  individuals 
only  returned.  The  whole  kingdom  wept  for  the 
young  King  who,  in  the  twenty-fifth  year  of  his 
age,  had  been  slaughtered  on  the  plains  of 
Alcacer ;  for  the  nobility  which  had  been  deci- 
mated and  the  honour  of  their  arms  dimmed. 
And  that  battle,  where  were  expiated  the  many 
national  sins  that  led  to  that  disastrous  compaign, 
was,  and  will  always  remain,  a  day  of  mourning 
for  Portugal. 


II 

CAMOES 

THESE  were  the  chaotic  conditions  of  the 
Portuguese  spirit  when  there  arose  a 
genius  to  whom  the  contradiction  between  life 
such  as  it  was  and  Hfe  as  it  should  or  might  be 
became  so  evident  that  he  felt  it  his  duty  to 
influence  the  feelings  of  those  who  could  enjoy 
the  music  of  his  song.  This  was  Camoes,  who 
produced  the  "Lusiads,"  that  most  enduring  national 
monument  of  Portugal  and  the  Portuguese  spirit — 
a  work  which,  though  every  line  throbs  with  the 
personality  of  a  great  poet,  none  the  less  is  a 
poem  where,  to  quote  Theophilo  Braga,  **  we  find 
exemplified  that  tradition  which  insures  moral 
unity  to  a  people  and  is  a  bond  which  constitutes 
a  nationality." 


"Eu  canto  o  peito  illustre  Lusitano 
A  quern  Neptuno  e  Marte  obedeceram." 

("  The  Lusiads,"  Canto  i.  3.)  ^ 

^"The  nobler  Lusian's  stouter  breast  sing  I, 
Whom  Mars  and  Neptune  dared  not  disobey." 

(Translation  by  R.  F.  Burton.) 

57 


58        Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

These  lines  declare  the  living  spirit  of  the 
"Lusiads,"  in  which  Camoes  forms  and  fosters  the 
national  idea.  The  poet  celebrates  the  principal 
virtue  of  the  Portuguese,  their  heroism  on  land 
and  at  sea.  The  "  Lusiads  "  is  an  epic.  But  it  is 
an  epic  poem  to  be  put  side  by  side  with  the 
Ionian  Songs,  the  Mahabarata  and  the  Kale- 
vala.  It  presents  no  fixed  hero,  but  seeks  to 
fashion  the  glory  of  a  country  in  the  highest 
development  of  character.  The  very  title  ^  of 
the  poem  denotes  the  true  nature  of  its  subject. 
It  is  this  elevation  of  purpose  that  has  won  for 
Camoes  so  exalted  a  name  among  his  country- 
men. No  one  can  possibly  read  the  ''  Lusiads  " 
without  hesitating  as  to  which  is  most  worthy 
of  admiration — the  magnificent  rhythm,  the  ex- 
quisite humanness,  or  the  great  truths  which  flash 
at  once  on  the  minds  which  receive  them  ;  and 
the  range  of  the  poet's  influence  has  been  such 
that  wherever  there  are  men  of  Portuguese  origin, 
speaking  the  Portuguese  language,  there  the 
genius  of  Camoes  is  one  of  the  important  facts 
of  life. 

^  The  "  Lusiads,"  from  the  Latin  name  Lusitania  of  Portugal,  from 
Lusus  of  Lysas  who  settled  a  colony  in  Lusitania.  See  Plin.  i. 
iii.  c.  I.  Vide  De  Antiquitatibus  Lusitania^  4  vols.,  by  Andr^  de 
Resende,  the  most  ancient  records  that  identify  the  Portuguese  of 
to-day  with  the  Lusitanians, 


Camoes  59 


There   had   already    been  efforts    to   create   a 
work  which  was  to  be  the  epopee  of  Portugal, 
and  among  those  historians  who  had  attempted 
to  record  the  events  in  prose  I  may  include  Joao 
de  Barros,  the  Livy  of  Portugal,  the  great  his- 
torian whose  statue  Pope  Pius  iv  placed  in  the 
Vatican  near  that  of  Ptolemy,  and  of  whom  the 
Venetians  erected  a  statue  in  their  pantheon  of 
great   men ;    Diogo   do    Couto,    the   well-known 
chronicler ;  and  Lopes  de  Castanheda,  author  of 
the   History  of  the   Discovery   and  Conquest  of 
India,  Barros  having  purposely  served  in  Africa 
and  Castanheda  having  visited  India  to  fit  them- 
selves for  their  task    as   historians.     But  it  was 
reserved    to   Camoes   to   be   the   creator  of  the 
"  Lusiads,"  and  raise  this  imperishable  monument 
to  the  glory  of  his  country,  and  he  remains  a  unique 
personality  not  to  be  underrated.     Portugal  can 
also  point  to  other  epic  poems,  such  as  the  **  First 
Siege  of   Diu,"    by  Francisco   d'  Andrade  ;   the 
**  Second  Siege  of  Diu"  and  the  "Shipwreck  of 
Sepulveda,"    by    Jeronymo     Corte     Real ;     the 
**  Affonso  the  African,"  by  Vasco  Mousinho  de 
Quevedo ;  the  "  Ulyssea,"  by  Gabriel  Pereira  de 
Castro ;  the  "  Malacca  Conquered  by  Francisco 
de  Sd  de  Menezes,"  ;  the  "  Ulyssopo,"  by  Antonio 
de  Souza  de  Macedo;  and  the  **  Destruction  of 


60        Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

Spain,"  by  Andr6  de  Silva  de  Mascarenhas ;  but 
none  of  these  singly  nor  indeed  all  of  them  to- 
gether are  near  enough  to  make  the  light  of  the 
"  Lusiads  "  invisible.  And  Pope's  remark  about 
Homer  that  "he  swallowed  up  the  honour  of 
those  who  succeeded  him  "  may  justly  be  applied 
to  Camoes,  whom  even  the  great  Tasso,  who 
dedicated  a  sonnet  in  his  honour,  had  to  acknow- 
ledge that  "he  feared  him  as  a  rival" — a  verdict 
which  called  forth  the  following  remarks  from 
Chateaubriand  :  "  Can  anything  be  more  beauti- 
ful," wrote  the  author  of  the  Genius  of  Christianity, 
"than  this  association  of  illustrious  equals  re- 
vealing themselves  to  one  another  as  it  were 
by  signs,  exchanging  salutations  and  conversing 
together  in  a  language  intelligible  to  themselves?"  ^ 
It  is  of  course  difficult,  when  speaking  of  the 
place  which  is  fit  to  assign  to  Camoes,  to  dis- 
criminate with  precision  between  the  claims  that 
arise  from  his  poetical  endowments  and  the  sig- 
nificance of  his  position  in  the  history  of  his 
country.  The  most  obvious  of  all  remarks  about 
Camoes  is  the  close  connection  between  his 
poem  and  his  life.  If  it  is  his  poem  which  gives 
importance  to  his  biography,  his  biography  has 

^  Vide  Essai  sur  la  Literature  Anglaise  et  considerations  sur  le 
genie  des  hommes,  des  temps  et  des  revolutions ,  1835. 


Camoes  ei 


increased  the  interest  which  attaches  to  the  poem. 
No  Portuguese  represents  more  perfectly  the 
spirit  of  an  age  and  the  soul  of  a  race  than  the 
great  poet.  Born  when  Vasco  da  Gama,  the 
discoverer  of  a  new  way  to  India,  died,  and 
having  ceased  to  live  soon  after  the  disaster  of 
Alcacer-Kebir,  before  suffering  the  humiliation  of 
seeing  his  country  lose  her  autonomy  and  become 
a  province  of  Spain,  Camoes  is  the  incarnation 
of  the  Portuguese  soul,  and  his  '*  Lusiads  "  repre- 
sents not  only  the  poetry  but  the  entire  wisdom 
and  accumulated  experience  of  a  nation. 

The  life  of  Camoes  was  not  a  mere  chapter 
in  a  history  of  literature.  Of  his  childhood  and 
boyhood  no  record  remains,  but  as  a  poet  his  life 
touched  humanity  and  was  not  in  any  sense  apart 
from  it.  Here  and  now  it  is  enough  to  say  that 
his  career,  so  far  as  it  can  be  traced,  was  one  of 
misfortune. 

In  his  youth  he  loved  a  woman,  and  was 
banished.  The  woman  he  loved  had  an  influence 
in  his  life  of  equal  importance,  though  perhaps  not 
so  great,  as  the  influence  of  Laura  de  Sade  in 
the  life  of  Petrarch.  She  was  Dona  Catharina 
d'  Athaide,^  sister  of  Dom  Antonio  d'  Athaide,  a 

^  According  to  Visconde  de   Juromenha,   Camoes  saw  Dona 
Catharina  for  the  firs    time  in  the  Church  of  Christ's  Wounds  in 


62        Portuguese  Monarchy 

favourite  of  John  in,  and  a  Lady  of  Honour  to 
the  Queen. 

Like  another  Ovid,  he  violated  the  laws  of  the 
royal  household  in  endeavouring  to  see  the  lady 
he  loved.  Such  conduct  was  not  to  be  easily 
forgiven  in  the  days  of  a  king  like  John  iii,  the 
*'  Pious  "  as  he  was  called,  whose  ancestors  had  al- 
ready made  example  of  those  who  had  carried  on 
love  intrigues  within  the  royal  precincts.  John  i 
suffered  one  of  his  favourites,  whose  amorous 
passions  had  incited  him  to  enter  the  Palace  by 
night,  to  be  burnt  alive !  Affonso  v  for  similar 
reason    did    not   hesitate    to    behead    Diogo   de 

Lisbon,  as  Petrarch  did  Laura  in  the  Church  of  Avignon  ;  and — 
strange  coincidence — both  poets  seem  to  have  seen  the  ladies  of 
their  thoughts  on  a  Good  Friday  ! 

A  circumstance  to  which  the  poet  himself  alludes  in  the  follow- 
ing lines  of  his  sonnet — 

"  Sweetly  was  heard  the  anthem's  strain 
And  myriads  bow'd  before  the  sainted  shrine, 
In  solemn  reverence  to  the  Sire  divine, 
Who  gave  the  lamb  for  guilty  mortals  slain. 
When,  in  the  midst  of  God's  eternal  fane, 
(Ah,  little  weaning  of  his  fell  design  !) 
Love  bore  the  heart  which  since  has  never  been  mine. 
To  one  who  seem'd  of  heaven's  elected  train  ; 
For  sanctity  of  place  or  time  were  vain 
'Gainst  that  blind  Archer's  soul-consuming  power 
Which  scorns  and  scars  all  circumstance  above  ; 
Oh  !  Lady,  since  I've  worn  thy  gentle  chain, 
How  oft  have  I  deplored  each  wasted  hour. 
When  I  was  free  and  had  not  learn'd  to  love  ! " 

(Lord  Strangford's  translation.) 


Camoes  63 


Sousa.  Anyway,  the  adventure  cost  Camoes  a 
banishment  to  a  place  on  the  banks  of  the  Tagus. 
Thoughts  and  passions  began  to  seethe  in  him 
which  only  could  be  matured  in  the  solitude  of  an 
exile.  It  was  at  this  period  that  he  conceived 
the  idea  of  writing  the  **  Lusiads,"  which  was  to 
immortalise  his  fame. 

He  left  his  place  of  banishment  to  fight  for  his 
country,  and  at  a  battle  with  the  Moors  at  the 
Strait  of  Gibraltar  he  lost  his  right  eye,^  which 
was  destroyed  by  a  splinter. 

The  poet  had  now  finally  broken  with  the  old 
life  of  a  courtier.  In  deep  disgust  and  anger  at 
his  countrymen  he  resolved  to  leave  Portugal  for 
good  in  the  Sam  Bento  commanded  by  Fernando 
Alves  Cabral,  and  the  last  words  he  is  said  to 
have  uttered  on  board  of  that  vessel,  bound  for 
India,  were  those  of  Scipio  Africanus,  **  Ungrate- 
ful country,  thou  shalt  not  possess  my  bones." 

In  India  the  ingenious  chicanery  with  which 
some  of  the  viceroys  carried  on  their  dishonesty 
provoked  Camoes'  virulent  satires,  entitled  **  Dis- 
parates na  India," ^  which  attacked  the  policy  of 
the  Portuguese  in  India,  where  life  for  Portuguese 

^  In  Sir  Richard  Fanshawe's  English  translation  of  the  "  Lusiads" 
the  poet  appears  blind  of  the  left  eye,  which  perhaps  may  be 
accounted  for  from  the  plate  having  been  reversed. 

2  "  Follies  in  India." 


64        Porttigttese  Monarchy 

was  not  subject  to  reason,  but  was  something 
to  be  enjoyed.  Camoes,  therefore,  conscious  of 
those  follies  and  vices  so  well  described  by  the 
chronicler,  Diogo  do  Couto,  in  his  Soldado  Practico, 
which  were  strangling  the  energies  of  a  people, 
and  animated  by  a  nobler  devotion  to  his  country, 
could  not  but  protest  against  those  Portuguese 
who,  lapped  in  Oriental  luxury,  seemed  almost 
to  have  lost  the  thought  of  their  mission !  But 
it  exposed  Camoes  to  a  rancorous  hostility.  He 
was  immediately  sent  to  Macau  in  China,  where 
he  was  appointed  Commissary  of  the  Estate  of 
Deceased  Persons.  It  was  at  Macau,  in  the 
quietude  of  the  Grotto,^  according  to  a  tradition 
not  improbable  in  itself,  that  much  of  the 
"  Lusiads  "  was  written. 

Five  years  later,  when  allowed  to  return  to 
Goa,  Camoes  freighted  a  ship  in  which  he  em- 
barked with  all  his  wealth,  but  unhappily  he  lost 
everything  he  possessed  in  a  shipwreck  in  the 
gulf  near  the  mouth  of  the  river  Mecon  in  Cochin 
China.  He  saved  his  life  by  swimming,  and  carried 
in  one  hand  the  manuscript  of  the  **  Lusiads," 
an  episode  which  he  pathetically  related  in  the 


^  An  engraving  of  it  may  be  seen  in  Ouseley's  Oriental  Collec- 
tion, and  another  will  be  found  in  Sir  G.  Staunton's  Account  of 
the  Embassy  to  China. 


C  «      »      c-     « 


c   c    'e    c,*  «      •    'e    e         e     'c*    c 


(QXll'-^Zill) 


LUIZ  DE  CAMOES 
(1524-1579) 


Camoes  65 


following  lines  of  his  poem  in  which  Camoes, 
with  the  confidence  of  a  great  genius,  anticipated 
the  fame  that  he  would  acquire — a  prediction 
seldom  so  completely  realised  as  it  was  in  the 
Portuguese  poet's  instance  : — 

"Este  receberd  placido,  e  brando, 
No  seu  regago  o  Canto,  que  molhado 
Vem  do  naufragio  triste,  e  miserando 
Dos  procellosos  baixos  escapado, 
Das  fomes  dos  perigos  grandes  quando 
Serd  o  injusto  mando  executado 
N'aquelle,  cuja  lyra  sonora 
Serd  mais  afamada  que  ditosa." 

(Canto  X.,  Stanza  cxxviii.)  ^ 

Deprived  of  his  wealth,  Camoes  had  to  remain 
on  a  strange  shore  till  he  had  enough  to  proceed 
to  Goa.  He  was  welcomed  to  Goa  by  Dom 
Constantino  de  Bragan^a,  Viceroy  of  India,  who 
was  one  of  the  few  friends  the  poet  had.  Here, 
again,  his  life  proved  a  chain  of  miseries  and  woes. 
No  sooner  had  Dom  Constantino  left  India — with 
whom,  may  safely  be  said,  ended  all  hopes  in  the 

^  "  Upon  his  soft  and  charitable  brim 

The  wet  and  shipwrecked  Song  received  shall  be 

Which  in  a  lamentable  plight  shall  swim 

From  the  shoals  and  quicksands  of  tempestuous  Sea, 

The  dire  effect  of  Exile  when  on  him 

Is  executed  the  unjust  Decree : 

When  repercussive  Lyre  shall  have  the  Fate 

To  be  renowned  more  than  Fortunate." 

(Translation  by  Sir  Richard  Fansbawe.) 

5 


66        Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

East — than  Camoes  was  intrigued  and  abused  by 
his  old  enemies.  Unjustly  accused  of  misconduct 
at  Macau,  he,  like  a  criminal,  was  ignominiously 
thrown  into  prison  and  put  into  irons.  Being  set 
free  he  determined  to  return  to  the  mother 
country,  and  accompanied  Pedro  Barreto  Rolim 
to  Mozambique,  where  he  incurred  the  displeasure 
of  Pedro  Barreto,  then  Governor  of  Africa,  who 
imprisoned  him  for  debt.  His  friends,  however, 
paid  his  debts,  and  at  last,  after  about  seventeen 
years  of  suffering  and  sorrow,  he  found  himself, 
with  his  poem  almost  ready  for  publication,  in 
Lisbon  in  1570,  to  witness  the  ravages  of  the 
yellow  fever  in  the  very  heart  of  the  city,  "  when 
there  died  seven  hundred  persons  a  day,  when 
there  was  no  place  to  bury  the  dead,  and  fifty  to 
sixty  corpses  were  daily  thrown  into  ditches."  ^ 

The  "  Lusiads  "  was  therefore  written  under  the 
pain  of  exile,  persecutions,  and  frowns  of  poverty. 
The  great  poet's  powers  may  therefore  be  said 
to  have  matured  through  suffering. 

"Most  wretched  men 
Are  cradled  into  poetry  by  wrong  ; 
They  learn  in  suffering  what  they  teach  in  song." 

The  above  verses  were  written  by  Shelley,  and 
Shelley  had  his  share  of  such  griefs  as  these. 

1  Vide  Oliveira  Martins,  Historia  de  Portugal^  vol.  ii.  p.  37. 


Camoes  67 


In  1572  the  "  Lusiads  "  was  published  and  dedi- 
cated to  the  young  King  Sebastian,  to  whom  the 
poet  addressed  the  following  verses — 

"  E  vds,  6  bem  nascida  seguranga 
Da  Lusitana  antigua  liberdade, 
E  nao  menos  certissima  esperanga 
De  augmento  da  pequena  Christandade 
Vds,  6  novo  temor  da  Maura  langa 
Maravilha  fatal  da  nossa  idade, 
Dada  ao  mundo  por  Deos  que  todo  O  mande ; 
Para  do  mundo  a  Deos  dar  parte  grande." 

(Canto  I.,  Stanza  vi.)  ^ 

Camoes  conceived  great  hopes  of  King 
Sebastian's  reign.  He  had  found  in  the  young 
Monarch  a  strong  attachment  to  the  traditions  of 
his  country,  which,  till  then,  were  to  exterminate 
the  Moor,  against  whom  it  was,  in  those  days,  just 
to  feel  anger,  and  hard  not  to  thirst  for  vengeance. 
Camoes  had  seen  King  Sebastian  shifting  his 
royal  quarters  in  the  kingdom  from  one  end  to 
the  other,  going  from  place  to  place  and  opening 
the  graves  of  his  ancestors.     At  Batalha,  by  his 

^  "  And  thou,  the  best  born  fortress  and  the  stay 
Of  ancient  Lusitanian  liberty, 
No  less  of  hope,  the  most  assured  ray 
For  growth  of  nascent  Christianity  ; 
Thou,  the  avenging  marvel  of  our  day, 
New  terror  of  the  Moorish  lance  to  be, 
Given  to  the  world  by  God  to  rule  it  all. 
That  of  the  world  great  part  to  God  may  fall." 

(Translation  by  J.  J.  Aubertin.) 


68        Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

order,  the  corpse  of  John  ii  had  been  lifted  from 
the  grave  where  it  had  been  lying  three-quarters 
of  a  century,  and,  having  placed  the  body  against 
himself,  the  young  King  had  measured  his  own 
with  that  of  the  great  king,  his  ancestor.  "  Be- 
hold the  best  officer  of  our  kingly  office,"  he  is 
said  to  have  exclaimed  when  commanding  the 
Duke  of  Aveiro  to  kiss  the  withered  hand  of  the 
corpse !  And  the  poet,  convinced  perhaps  that 
one  of  the  most  effective  means  of  invigorating 
the  mind  of  the  people  for  future  action  was  to 
encourage  a  familiarity  with  great  national  events, 
was  loyally  supporting  the  young  King.  Indeed, 
in  the  situation  in  which  Sebastian  stood,  with  a 
people  receiving  no  impression  from  the  rest  of 
the  world  and  making  no  impression  upon  it, 
perhaps  he  saw  no  other  way  to  awake  the  people 
from  the  slumber  into  which  they  were  falling 
but  to  appeal  to  the  martial  spirit  of  the  Portu- 
guese. And  once  the  crusading  spirit  was  rife, 
perhaps  he  hoped  the  African  campaign,  if  suc- 
cessful, would  have  shaken  the  whole  fabric  of 
Portuguese  society. 

Into  what  an  agony  of  sorrow  the  disaster  of 
Alcacer  -  Kebir  threw  the  poet  can,  therefore, 
hardly  be  imagined.  Camoes  received  the  news 
of  the   calamity   that   had   befallen  the  country 


Gamoes  69 


when  he  was  lying  ill,  and  amid  all  the  vicissitudes 
of  his  chequered  life,  the  event  preyed  upon  his 
mind.  How  could  he,  patriot  as  he  was  in  every 
sense,  who — in  the  epilogue,  addressed  to  King 
Sebastian,  with  which  the  poem  concluded,  and 
which,  to  quote  Adamson^s  words,  "  does  honour 
to  the  noble  heart  and  to  the  patriotism  of 
Camoes  and  is  full  of  the  most  zealous  loyalty 
of  love  of  truth  and  justice,  and  expressed  with 
a  degree  of  liberty  becoming  his  elevated 
character "  ^  —  had  almost  incited  the  young 
monarch  to  undertake  such  an  expedition,  be 
insensible  to  a  concern  in  which  every  Portuguese 
must  have  been  so  deeply  affected ! 

The  poet's  last  days  were  days  of  misery. 
He  spent  them  in  affliction,  forsaken  by  all. 
Camoes — the  pride  of  Portuguese  literature,  who 
had  every  claim  to  the  bounty  of  his  sovereign, 
whose  poem  had  stirred  the  nation's  inmost  soul — 
was  allowed  to  starve  !  A  pension  of  15,000  reis, 
equivalent  to  jCs,  Ss.,^  had  been  granted  to  him — 
an  annuity  which  even  carried  with  it  the  obliga- 
tion of  obtaining  a  new  decree  for  its  payment 
every  three  years.     Even   this   meagre   pension 

^  Vide,  Memoirs  of  the  Life  and  Writings  of  Luis  de  Camoens, 
by  John  Adamson,  F.S.A.,  vol.  xi.  p.  55. 

2  Money  being  then  six  times  its  present  worth,  it  would  amount 
to  about  ;^2o  to-day. 


70        Portagtiese  Monarchy 

was  withdrawn  by  Prince  Cardinal  Henry.  His 
poetical  glory,  that  chimerical  comfort  in  real 
calamities,  was  contested.  Francisco  de  Sd,  whose 
muse  was  of  a  theological  turn,  was  patronised  by 
Cardinal  Henry ;  and  Camoes,  now  aged  and 
reduced  to  crutches,  had  to  subsist  on  the  alms 
which  his  servant  Antonio,  a  native  of  Java, 
begged  throughout  the  city  and  at  night  shared 
with  his  master  in  a  small  apartment  in  the  Rua 
of  S.  Anne !  The  French  poet  Ronsard,  once 
the  idol  of  France  and  especially  of  his  king, 
Charles  ix,  had  been  given  the  Portuguese  Order 
of  Christ,  and  the  author  of  the  **Lusiads"  had 
to  petition  his  king  for  the  payment  of  his 
pension. 

But  what  could  be  expected  of  a  country  where 
the  noblest  of  her  sons  were  ungratefully  treated, 
and  some,  to  Portugal's  shame,  had  even  to  fill 
paupers'  graves !  The  ignominy  to  which  the 
two  great  Viceroys  of  India,  Dom  Francisco 
d'  Almeida  and  Affonso  d'  Albuquerque,  were 
subjected  was  not  the  only  instance  of  a  country's 
degradation.  Duarte  Pacheco,  whose  face  was 
scarred  with  the  sorrows  of  his  country,  who  with 
900  Portuguese  defeated  an  army  of  50,000 
natives  and  defended  Cochin — a  victory  which 
completely  established  and  increased  the  prestige 


Camoes  7i 


of  the  Portuguese  in  India — was  put  in  irons  and 
died  of  starvation  in  a  hospital !  And  his  widow 
had  to  beg  in  public  for  a  living.  "  The  fate  of 
this  hero,"  says  Goes,  ''was  of  a  nature  to  warn 
mankind  to  beware  of  the  inconstancy  of  the 
kings  and  princes  and  their  small  remembrance 
of  those  to  whom  they  are  bound."  ^ 

This  is  not  all.  Dom  Joao  de  Castro,  whose 
fame  rests  upon  the  relief  of  Diu,  in  consequence 
of  whose  victory  the  Portuguese  possessions  in 
India  form  still  a  part  of  the  kingdom,  was 
treated  most  shamefully.  He  who  had  gained  a 
victory  with  the  glory  of  a  Thermopylae,^  was 
allowed  to  die  the  death  of  a  pauper.  *'  I  am 
ashamed  to  tell  you,  gentlemen,"  were  the  last 
words  of  Dom  Joao  de  Castro,  ''that  the  Viceroy 
of  India,  expiring  with  wounds  and  fatigues  on 
the  bed  of  sickness,  is  in  want  of  necessaries 
which  even  a  private  soldier  finds  in  a  hospital !  " 
"  I  also,"  added  the  entreating  Viceroy,  "request 


^  Vide  Damiao  de  Goes,  Chronica  do  Senhor  Rey  Dom  Manuel. 

2  The  courage  displayed  by  the  four  hundred  Portuguese  who 
opposed  the  thirty  thousand  men,  was  such  that  one  of  the 
defeated  generals,  recognising  the  exceptional  bravery  of  the 
Portuguese,  said  :  "  The  Portuguese  are  certainly  a  distinct  species 
of  men  of  such  superior  strength  and  courage  that  if  Providence 
had  not  made  them  few  in  number,  like  the  ferocious  and  venomous 
animals,  and  shut  them  up  in  the  dens  of  the  North,  they  would 
eventually  destroy  the  rest  of  the  human  race." 


72        Porttcgtiese  Monarchy 

you  will  order  a  change  of  bed  linen,  as  I  have 
not  a  second  quilt  to  my  bed." 

Such  was  the  reward  of  patriotism  bestowed 
upon  those  whose  great  deeds  are  sung  by 
Camoes. 

"  Nao  deixarao  meus  versos  esquecidos 
Aquelles,  que  no  reino  U  da  Aurora 
Se  fizeram  por  armas  tao  subidos, 
Vossa  bandeira  sempre  vencedora  : 
Hum  Pacheco  fortissimo,  e  os  temidos 
Almeidas  porquem  sempre  o  Tejo  chora  : 
Albuquerque  terribil,  Castro  forte, 
E  outros  em  que  poder  nao  teve  a  morte." 

(Canto  I.,  Stanza  xiv.)^ 

Pacheco,  Albuquerque,  Castro,  and  Almeida,  who 
had  suffered  long  and  greatly  in  the  service  of 
their  country,  won  ingratitude  and  died  miserably 
destitute.  Camoes  could  be  no  exception  to  the 
rule.  The  poet  finished  in  an  almshouse  in 
Lisbon  his  career  of  glory  and  of  misery. 
Camoes,  a  poet,  a  soldier,  a  patriot,  was  buried 
like  a  pauper  in  the  Chapel  of  Franciscan  Nuns 

^  "  Nor  shall  they  silent  in  my  song  remain. 
They  who  in  regions  there  where  Dawn  rises 
By  Acts  of  Arms  such  glories  toil'd  to  gain. 
Where  thine  unvanquisht  flag  for  ever  flies, 
Pacheco  brave  of  braves  ;  th'  Almeida's  twain 
Whom  Tagus  mourns  with  ever  weeping  eyes ; 
Dread  Albuquerque,  Castro  stark  and  brave, 
With  more  the  victors  of  the  very  grave." 

(Translation  by  R.  F.  Burton.) 


Camoes  73 


in  Lisbon !  His  very  winding-sheet  was  given 
out  of  charity  for  his  grave  ! 

He  died  in  1579  in  the  fifty-sixth  year  of  his 
age.  A  friar,  Josepe  Indeo/  who  must  have  been 
present  at  the  dying  scene  of  the  poet,  wrote  : 
**  What  a  lamentable  thing  to  see  so  great  a 
genius  so  ill-rewarded  !  " 

"I  saw  him  die,"  said  he,  *'in  a  hospital  in 
Lisbon  without  having  a  sheet  or  shroud  to  cover 
him,  after  having  triumphed  in  the  East  and 
sailed  5000  leagues ! "  So  lived  and  so  died 
the  great  poet. 

And  to  Portugal's  greatest  shame  it  was 
necessary  that  a  foreign  monarch  had  to  come 
to  Portugal  to  save  the  poet's  mother,  old,  and 
left  behind  to  mourn  the  loss  of  her  son,  from 
perishing  from  want  of  food  !  Philip  11,  on  his 
entry  into  Portugal,  asked  to  see  Camoes,  but 
the  Portuguese  poet  was  dead. 

But  the  Castillian  monarch,  like  Alexander, 
who,  when  besieging  Thebes,  spared  the  house 
of  Pindar  out  of  reverence  to  that  poet,  paid 
a  tribute  to  the  memory  of  Camoes  by  his 
thoughtful  kindness  to  the  poet's  mother. 


^  A  Carmelite,  who  entered  the  fact  on  the  margin  of  a  copy 
which  he  bequeathed  to  his  Order,  and  which,  according  to 
Adamson,  was  in  the  possession  of  the  late  Lord  Holland. 


Ill 

PORTUGAL  FOR  THE  PORTUGUESE 

"  T  DIE  with  my  country,"  were  the  last  words 
X  uttered  by  Camoes  on  his  death-bed.  In 
this  sentence  may  be  summed  up  the  estimate  of 
one  of  the  grandest  and,  morally,  one  of  the 
noblest  Portuguese  that  ever  lived.  If  we  draw 
the  lesson  we  might  from  these  words,  and 
analyse  the  fate  of  the  country  that  gave  birth 
to  the  great  poet,  it  certainly  affords  no  very 
pleasing  picture  of  the  destiny  of  a  nation.  No 
sooner  had  the  great  heart  which  inspired  the 
**  Lusiads"  ceased  to  beat  than  the  sword  of  the 
Duke  of  Alba  did  away  with  the  independence 
of  Portugal,  and  ever  since  Portuguese  history 
has  been  a  record  of  her  disasters. 

A  people  who  had  secured  its  autonomy  with 
successes  such  as  those  of  Atoleiros,  Trancoso, 
Aljubarrota,  and  Valverde,  had  to  suffer  the  dis- 
grace of  the  Spanish  yoke !  And  this  without 
any  prospect  of  advantage,  but,  on  the  contrary, 

74 


Portugal  for  the  Porttigtiese    75 

with   the   certainty   of   losing   her    colonies   and 
having  her  commerce  destroyed. 

The  history  of  Portugal  at  that  time  possesses 
a  mournful  interest.  After  the  disaster  of  Alcacer- 
Kebir  a  great  part  of  the  nation  had  slept  in 
such  indolent  security  that,  when  they  awoke 
from  rapturous  trance,  they  found  themselves  sold 
to  a  foreign  and  despotic  monarch. 

Seven  candidates  disputed  the  throne  of 
Portugal  round  the  death-bed  of  Cardinal  Henry, 
Sebastian's  grand-uncle,  who  had  succeeded  him 
and  who  was  the  last  king  of  the  House  of  A  viz. 
Phillip  II  of  Spain  was  claiming  the  throne 
because  his  wife  was  a  daughter  of  John  iii, 
and  he  himself  a  descendant  of  King  Manuel, 
whose  daughter,  the  wife  of  Charles  v,  vvas  his 
mother.  The  Duchess  of  Braganga  was  assert- 
ing her  right  to  the  throne  because  she  was  the 
daughter  of  Edward,  Manuel's  second  son. 
Antonio,  the  famous  Prior  de  Crato,  whose 
daring  escape  from  the  Moors,  when  taken 
prisoner  after  Alcacer-Kebir,  had  made  him  a 
favourite  with  the  people,  was  maintaining  his 
legitimacy  of  birth  and  fighting  for  his  claims 
arising  from  being  son  of  the  Infante  Louis,  a 
younger  son  of  Manuel.  Ranucio,  the  Prince 
of  Parma,  and  Emmanuel  Philibert,  the  Duke  of 


76        Portttgtiese  Monarchy 

Savoy,    putting   aside   the   statutes   of  Lamego, 

were  also  claiming  the  throne — the  first  as  son 

of  Maria  of  Portugal,  granddaughter  of  Manuel, 

and  the  latter  as  son  of  Manuel's  daughter.     The 

Queen  Mother  of  France  was  tracing  her  descent 

from  Mathilda,  wife  of  Alphonso  iv  of  Portugal. 

The    Pope   claimed  because   Portugal  was   once 

feudatory  to  the  See  of  Rome,  and  had  no  direct 

male  heirs  to  the  throne.     Even  Queen  Elizabeth 

of  England  had  gone  so  far  as  to  declare  that 

she  had  a  right  to  dispute  the  interests  of  the 

House  of  Lancaster  in  Portugal.     But  the  "most 

catholic  "  King  triumphed  over  every  one  of  his 

rivals.     It  was  not,  however,  the  aid  of  35,000 

men  under   the  famous    Duke   of  Alba,  or   the 

strong   fleet   sent  under  the    Marquis   of  Santa 

Croce,  that  gave  him  an  advantage  over  other 

pretenders.     Philip  11,  acquainted  as  he  was  with 

the   Portuguese  who  were  at   the   time  guiding 

the   destinies   of  the   nation,    fomented   mischief 

and   intrigue    which   he    knew  would   serve    the 

purpose  of  his  own  ambition.     And  these  men, 

unhesitatingly  accepting  his  bribe,  had  not  only 

dissolved    the    Cortes,    but    even    entrusted    the 

military  command  of  the  towns  on  the  frontier 

to  persons  of  their  own  morality.     So  low  had 

sunk  the  national  spirit  that  rejoicings  instead  of 


Portugal  for  the  Porttigtiese    ii 

opposition  had  met  the  Duke  of  Alba  when  he 
marched  upon  Lisbon  and  proclaimed  Philip  i  of 
Portugal.  The  Portuguese  were  welcoming  the 
Duke  of  Alba,  whom  they  knew  had  administered 
the  Netherlands  and,  in  the  interests  of  his  master, 
caused  **  eighteen  thousand  persons  to  be  executed 
there."  ^ 

The  sixty  years  of  captivity,  as  the  Spanish 
domination  from  15  80- 1640  is  called,  were,  how- 
ever, passed  in  sullen  discontent  and  exasperation. 
The  Philips  had  perjured  themselves  and  broken  the 
most  solemn  oaths.  But  the  subjects  of  Philip  11 
did  not  know  half  the  infamy  of  their  sovereign. 
They  did  not  know,  as  we  know,  that  the  revenues 
of  the  country  and  her  colonies  were  absorbed  by 
the  Spanish  monarch  in  his  struggle  with  England 
and  the  Netherlands.  The  destruction  of  the 
Great  Armada  by  the  English  in  1588  had 
ruined  the  last  hope  of  the  Portuguese  naval 
power,  and  the  obstructions  put  by  the  Spanish 
monarch  in  the  way  of  the  Dutch  trade  with 
Lisbon,  which,  through  his  bigotry,  was  entirely 
prohibited  in  1598,  had  resulted  in  the  Portuguese 
Empire  in  the  East  being  appropriated  piecemeal 
by  the  Dutch,  who,  by  1602,  had  established  a 
Dutch  East  India  Company  and  wrested  Amboyna 

1  Vide  Motley,  R  se  and  Fall  of  the  Dutch  Republic. 


78        Portttgaese  Monarchy 

and  the  Moluccas  from  the  Portuguese,  and  with 
them  obtained  the  monopoly  of  the  spice  trade 
— the  Portuguese  having  to  go  to  Holland  to 
purchase  the  Eastern  luxuries  of  which  they  had 
had  the  monopoly. 

Under  the  rule  of  Philip's  two  successors,  dis- 
content grew  apace.  The  Portuguese  had  carried 
on  a  trade  in  the  East  without  rivals,  and  now 
they  had  seen  that  the  most  valuable  of  their 
possessions  and  commerce  had  passed  into  the 
hands  of  those  whom  Philip's  intolerance  had 
made  their  enemies.  Besides  political  conscious- 
ness, the  desire  of  men  to  shape  their  own 
destinies  had  not  died  altogether.  There  was  a 
revival  of  her  national  traditions.  Beside  a  pleiad 
of  poets  that  arose  under  the  influence  of  the 
Spanish  vassalage,  Fr.  Bernardo  de  Brito  and 
Antonio  Brandao,  in  their  *'  Monarchia  Lusitana," 
told  the  story  of  Portugal's  independence  before 
she  was  reduced  to  the  abject  state  of  a  conquered 
province  of  Spain.  Thus  the  prophecies  of 
Christovam  de  Moura,  who,  in  exchange  for  a 
Viceroyalty  of  Portugal,  given  to  him  by  Philip  i, 
had  abdicated  all  the  sentiments  of  a  Portuguese 
and  looked  forward  to  a  permanent  union  of 
his  country  with  that  of  Spain,  did  not  come 
true. 


Portugal  for  the  Porttigtiese    79 

The  Portuguese  seized  the  opportunity  of  the 
insurrection  of  Catalonia  and  Biscay,  and  rose 
under  the  leadership  of  Joao  Pinto  Ribeiro. 
The  Regent,  Margaret  of  Savoy,  was  arrested, 
the  Spanish  chief  minister  put  to  death,  and  thus 
"sixty  years  of  captivity"  were  brought  to  an 
end,  and  the  house  of  Braganga  was  enthroned 
in  Portugal. 

Portugal  had  now  recovered  her  independence, 
and  the  eighth  Duke  of  Braganga^  was  welcomed 
as  King  by  all  the  States  at  war  with  the  House 
of  Austria.  The  vile  attempt  of  the  Spanish 
ambassador  in  Rome  to  assassinate  the  new  re- 
presentative of  Portugal  at  the  Vatican  provoked 
general  indignation  and  called  forth  a  movement 
of  sympathy  in  favour  of  Portugal. 

The  accession  of  John  iv,  the  first  representative 
of  the  House  of  Braganga,  was,  however,  incapable 
of  giving  to  the  country  that  moral  and  social 
regeneration  that  alone  could  save  it  from  further 
catastrophes. 

When  John  iv  was  chosen  to  ascend  the  throne, 
the  edict  published  on  that  auspicious  occasion 
concluded  thus : — 


^  He  was  the  direct  lineal  descendant  of  the  bastard  son  of 
John  I,  who  had  married  the  daughter  of  Nuno  Alvares  Pereira, 
the  "  Holy  Constable,"  the  famous  hero  of  Aljubarrota. 


80        Portuguese  Monarchy 

**The  Portuguese  in  placing  John  iv  upon  the 
throne  are  justified  by  every  incontrovertible 
right — the  right  of  succession  and  the  constitu- 
tional laws  of  the  kingdom — rights  which  are 
more  than  sufficient  to  overturn  a  forced  and 
tyrannical  possession  of  sixty  years  established 
and  maintained  by  force  of  arms." 

But  what  of  the  results?  The  excitement  of 
revolution  being  over,  people  relapsed  into 
immediate  indifference.  The  attitude  of  the 
Cortes  towards  the  new  King,  before  whom  all 
public  bodies  of  the  kingdom  had  dwindled  into 
insignificance,  was  servile.  To  exalt  the  Crown 
and  keep  the  institution  of  Royalty  from  decline, 
they  neglected  the  rights  of  the  people  ;  and  the 
great  hereditary  possessions  of  the  Bragan9a 
family — almost  one-third  of  the  property  of  the 
whole  kingdom  belonged  to  the  King — enabled 
John  IV  to  dispense  with  the  Cortes. 

Such  was  the  reign  of  John  iv,  which,  it  is  true, 
marked  a  great  event  in  the  history  of  Portugal, 
but  which  cannot  be  said  to  have  made  the 
nation  happy.  A  weakness  and  a  want  of  self- 
assertion  characterised  his  whole  career  as  a  king, 
which  was  brought  to  an  end  by  his  death  in  the 
year  1656.  The  years  immediately  following  the 
death   of  John    iv  were  years  of  grave  anxiety. 


Portugal  for  the  Portagtiese    si 

Very  troubled  was  the  Regency  of  the  Queen, 
whose  policy  had  involved  Portugal  in  a  war 
with  Spain  which,  fortunately,  had  resulted  in  a 
series  of  victories  over  the  Spaniards  ;  and  the 
accession  of  the  boy,  Alfonso  vi,  proved  a  source 
of  terrible  calamity  to  the  country  and  created 
new  difficulties  in  the  way  of  her  political 
development. 

Alfonso  VI  was  a  vicious  youth.  His  vulgar 
jesting  and  his  disregard  of  appearances  had 
shocked  the  nation.  It  is  said  that  a  stroke  of 
paralysis  had  deranged  his  mental  faculties.  A 
tool  in  the  hands  of  Conti,  his  valet,  the  royal 
youth  had  turned  a  bandit.  His  own  profligacy 
and  imbecility  had  found  satisfaction  in  organising 
bands  of  lawless  people  and  infesting  the  streets 
of  Lisbon,  every  licence  being  permitted  to  his 
followers. 

This  debauched  youth  in  1662  declared  himself 
of  age,  and  presumed  himself  fit  to  assume  the 
responsibility  of  the  government  of  his  country. 
He  was,  however,  fortunate  enough  to  avail  him- 
self of  the  services  of  Castello  Melhor,  an  eminent 
statesman  who  merits  to  be  better  known  than  he 
is,  whose  unswerving  loyalty  to  his  country  and 
whose  efforts  to  restore  the  tone  of  a  debased 
public  opinion  very  few  indeed  will  dispute.     But 


82        Portuguese  Monarchy 

Castello  Melhor   was   not   irreproachable   in    his 
policy.     He  arranged  the  marriage  of  Alfonso  vi 
with   the    French    Princess,    daughter   of    Duke 
of  Nemours  and  granddaughter  of  Henry  iv  of 
France.     A  charming  and  accomplished  Princess 
was  brought   from   a   brilliant  intellectual  life  in 
France  to  marry  a  man  who  had  shown  a  decided 
propensity  for  all  that   is   loathsome  and   filthy. 
The  fourteen  months  of  married  life  were  a  perfect 
martyrdom  to  this  poor  woman.     Afflicted  with 
grief,  she  saw  no  other  way  to  separate  herself 
from  the  man  whose  nature  had  reduced  her  to 
despair  but   to  retire  into   privacy  at  a  convent 
and  apply  for  a  divorce.     This  enlisted  the  feel- 
ings of  the  nation  on  the  side  of  the  unhappy 
Queen.      And    Dom    Pedro,   whose   gallant   and 
romantic  nature  contrasted  with  that  of  Alfonso  vi, 
placing   himself  at   the   head   of  the  revolution, 
bridled  his   brother's   licentiousness   by   shutting 
him  in  the  Palace ;  and  having  received,  on  the 
first  day  of  the  year  1668,  the  oath  of  allegiance 
of    the    Cortes,    he    assumed    regency    of    the 
kingdom.      A    divorce    was   granted    to  the  un- 
happy Queen,  and  Dom  Pedro,  who  had  already 
professed  sympathy  for  her  in  her  hours  of  trial, 
married  the  divorced  wife  of  his  brother,  Alfonso  vi, 
who   was   removed   to   Azores,    and  from    there 


Portugal  for  the  Portagtiesc    83 

brought  to  Cintra,  where  he  died  in  1683.  Thus 
ended  his  days — a  king  who  was  born  to  leave  a 
name  of  gloom  and  terror,  and  who  was  the  victim 
of  his  own  passions. 

Dom  Pedro,  who  ascended  the  throne  after  his 
brother's  death,  was  a  good-natured  king,  and 
the  nation  seemed  to  have  hoped  that  his  good 
qualities  would  find  pleasure  in  giving  the 
monarchy  its  old  aspect.  His  reign,  so  memor- 
able for  the  treaty  of  Methuen,^  prepared  by  Sir 
Methuen,  the  ambassador  of  Queen  Anne,  did  not 
disappoint  the  nation.  In  a  situation  of  great 
difficulty,  when  Portugal  had  to  keep  time  with 
the  foreign  policies  of  Spain,  France,  and  England 
respectively,  he  availed  himself  of  the  good 
services  of  Ericeira,  his  minister,  and  conducted 
the  affairs  of  his  country  with  prudence  and  some 
degree  of  foresight. 

We  are  now  to  enter  upon  a  period  when  the 
Portuguese  dug  before  their  feet  a  pitfall  into 
which  circumstances  pushed  headlong  their 
destinies  and  interests. 

A  situation  similar  to  that  created  by  the  dis- 

^  By  this  treaty  "  England  agreed  to  admit  Portuguese  wines 
upon  the  payment  of  33^^  per  cent,  less  than  the  duty  paid  upon 
wines  from  France  ;  and  the  woollen  cloths  of  England,  which 
had  been  prohibited  in  Portugal  for  twenty  years,  were  to  be 
admitted  upon  terms  of  proportionate  advantage." 


84        Portagtiese  Monarchy 

CO  very  of  India  in  the  sixteenth  century  had 
repeated  itself.  In  1573  a  certain  Tourinho  had 
discovered  in  Brazil  a  territory  of  "  Mines  "  and 
found  emeralds.  Explorers  had  hastened  to  the 
spot,  and  later  discoveries  had  found  that  the  region 
of  Cuyati  would  yield  an  immense  treasure  of  gold 
and  precious  stones.  Thus  during  the  first  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  one  hundred  millions 
sterling  were  to  be  drawn  in  diamonds  and 
precious  stones  alone !  John  v,  therefore,  when, 
in  1706,  he  succeeded  his  father,  Dom  Pedro  11, 
on  the  throne,  though  he  found  the  kingdom 
involved,  through  the  Methuen  treaty,  in  the  war 
of  Spanish  Succession,  saw  his  country  grow- 
ing in  wealth,  and  he  was  so  misled  by  the 
appearances  of  the  hour  as  to  imagine  the  nation 
so  well  advanced  along  the  road  of  material 
prosperity  as  to  revive  the  extravagances  of 
Claudian  Caesars  and  the  last  Flavian. 

The  conduct  of  the  people  was  in  truth  not 
different  from  their  ancestors  two  centuries  ago. 
Portuguese  literature  had  handed  down  the 
traditions  of  the  old  empire.  But  they  did  not 
profit  by  the  lesson  of  the  past.  The  fact  that 
the  power  of  Holland  alone  had  sufficed  to  tear 
from  them  most  of  their  Eastern  dominions  did 
not  seem  to  abate  a  jot  of  their  absurd  preten- 


Portugal  for  the  Portugtiese    85 

sions.  To  account  for  it,  we  may  adopt  the 
fatalism  of  the  Moor  or  the  indolence  of  the 
Peninsular.  Certain  it  is  that  the  national  moral 
sense  was  at  its  lowest  point.  Saint-Simon  says 
somewhere  in  his  Memoirs  that  one  of  the 
best  tests  of  the  history  of  a  country  is  the  know- 
ledge of  the  daily  routine  of  palace  life.  This  is 
exemplified  in  the  character  and  records  of  a 
profligate  and  bigoted  Court  such  as  that  of 
John  V — a  Court  swarming  with  sharpers  and 
courtesans,  and  with  a  nobility  required  to  glitter 
at  Court  festivals  and  bull-fights  rather  than 
participate  in  the  affairs  of  the  State.  John  v 
led  a  gay  life  that  would  have  brought  any  Court 
into  disrepute.  His  flirtations — we  must  use  the 
term,  for  we  know  no  better  one — with  the  nuns 
of  the  Convent  of  Odivellas  describe  the  sensuous 
nature  of  the  Portuguese  monarch.  He  not  only 
squandered  money  on  mistresses  and  begat 
bastards,  but  to  atone  for  his  sins  devoutly  threw 
away  sums  of  money  on  the  erection  of  monasteries 
and  chapels.  He  built  the  sumptuous  building  at 
Mafra,  the  Portuguese  Versailles,  now  a  desolate 
ruin,  where  three  hundred  Franciscans  were  lodged 
in  regal  splendour,  and  a  part  of  which  formed  the 
King's  palace.  It  was  his  idea  to  build  the  famous 
Chapel  of  St.  John  the  Baptist  in  the  Church  of 


86        Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

S.  Roque  in  Lisbon,  which  is  the  richest  chapel 
in  the  world.  To  appease  his  remorses  he  was 
constantly  forcing  most  valuable  presents  on  the 
Pope.  He  had  already  spent  no  less  than 
;^98,ooo  in  erecting  the  Archbishopric  of  Lisbon 
into  a  Patriarchate  with  a  sacred  college  of 
twenty-four  prelates  and  two  hundred  dignitaries 
attached  to  it,  the  Patriarch  being  allowed  to 
officiate  in  robes  like  those  of  the  Pope  and  the 
vestments  of  canons  resembling  those  of  the 
cardinals  in  Rome.  The  national  religious  fervour 
characteristic  of  the  old  Portuguese  was  now 
extinguished.  It  was  the  deification  of  power. 
Portugal  was  now  a  nation  given  over  to  the 
practices  of  religious  superstition,  which  were 
mixed  up  with  their  passions,  their  gallantry,  and 
their  crimes.  Thousands  of  Portuguese  had 
turned  priests  and  become  monks  so  that  they 
might  be  privileged  to  live  on  the  generosity  of 
the  King.  One-tenth  of  the  whole  population  of 
Portugal  idled  within  the  walls  of  some  eight 
thousand  convents.  At  the  same  time  the 
fecundity  of  superstition  had  created  new  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  her  commercial  development. 
The  remaining  few  Jews,  who  were  the  backbone 
of  Portuguese  commerce,  were  made  to  abandon 
the  country  and  establish  themselves  at  Amster- 


Portugal  for  the  Porttigticse    87 

dam,    which,  of  course,  paralysed   for   ever   the 
Portuguese  trade. 

The  extravagances  of  John  v  demoralised  the 
nation.  The  passion  for  display  pervaded  all 
classes :  many  noble  families  were  ruined  in  their 
struggle  to  vie  with  each  other  in  outward  magni- 
ficence— a  magnificence  that  merely  veiled  the 
moral  weakness  of  a  people. 

But  the  splendour  of  John  v's  Court,  which 
was  the  most  brilliant  in  Europe,  disappeared 
with  that  improvident  monarch.  John  v  died 
in  1750,  leaving  a  debt  of  three  millions  sterling. 

The  country  was  on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy, 
yet  the  proud  bankrupt  Portugal  retained  as  much 
love  for  display  in  those  times  of  destitution  as  if 
it  were  still  a  wealthy  nation. 

To  quote  the  simile  of  a  well-known  Portuguese 
historian  : — 

"  And  the  Lord  destroyed  these  cities,  all  the 
country  about,  and  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
cities.  ..." 

Such  was  the  fate  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah. 
Such  was  also  the  fate  of  Lisbon.  The  earth- 
quake of  ist  November  of  the  year  1755,  which 
laid  Lisbon  in  ruins,  came  as  a  destruction  from 
Heaven.  That  earthquake,  which  extended  its 
work  of  desolation  over  an  area  of  4000  miles  in 


88        Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

diameter,  swallowed  up  in  six  minutes  sixty-one 
churches  and  convents,  thirty-two  palaces  of 
nobility,  a  newly  built  quay,  and  destroyed  at  least 
sixty  thousand  lives  !  It  was  on  the  morning  of  All 
Saints'  Day  that  Lisbon  was  shattered  to  pieces. 
Churches  were  overwhelmed  with  crowds  of 
worshippers  that  were  buried  with  the  churches 
under  the  weight  of  their  walls  and  steeples  that 
had  suddenly  collapsed.  Thousands  staggered 
and  lost  their  lives  in  the  floods  of  the  Tagus 
that  had  burst  upon  the  city.  Fires  broke  out  in 
every  part  of  the  city  ;  prisoners  fled  and  pillaged 
those  who  had  escaped  death. 

The  effects  of  this  catastrophe,  which  called 
forth  a  vivid  description  by  Voltaire  in  his 
Candide,  were  terrible.  The  city  became  desolate, 
for  her  beauty  was  withered  away,  her  monuments 
and  her  art  treasures  had  vanished,  and  her 
population  perished.  And  it  delivered  the  country 
into  the  hands  of  a  tyrant.  In  other  words,  it 
produced  the  Marquis  de  Pombal,  the  famous 
minister  of  Joseph  i,  whose  twenty-seven  years 
of  administration  form  one  of  the  many  interesting 
incidents  in  the  history  of  Portugal. 


IV 

MARQUIS  DE  POMBAL 

AMONG  the  many  names  interwoven  with 
the  political  history  of  Portugal  no  name 
perhaps  has  attained  here  in  England  a  higher 
rank  for  notoriety  than  the  name  of  the  Marquis 
de  Pombal. 

In  Portugal  itself  there  are  few  men  of  whom 
more  opposite  estimates  have  been  formed  than 
Pombal.  He  is  regarded  by  some  as  the  very 
embodiment  of  Machiavellian  spirit,  and  by  others 
looked  upon  as  a  patriot  misunderstood.  But 
upon  one  point  every  one  seems  pretty  much 
agreed.     Pombal  was  a  dictator. 

Nobody  will  deny  his  activity  and  energy,  and 
it  would  be  unfair  not  to  speak  with  admiration 
of  the  rebuilding  of  Lisbon  after  the  earthquake. 

It  is  recorded  that,  when  asked  by  the  King 
what  was  to  be  done,  he  is  said  to  have  replied, 
*'  Bury  the  dead  and  feed  the  living."  For  eight 
days   and    nights,    according   to   an   account,   he 

lived  in  his  carriage,  driving  from  place  to  place, 

89 


90        Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

organising  the  great  work  of  relief  to  the  distressed, 
and  laying,  at  the  same  time,  the  foundation  of  the 
new  Lisbon. 

These  facts  show  the  man  certainly,  but  not  the 
whole  man. 

In  the  stormy  waters  in  which  the  vessel  of  the 
State  was  drifting  a  firm  hand  was  undoubtedly 
needed  at  her  helm.  A  statesman  was  wanted  in 
Portugal.  But  it  is  characteristic  of  a  master 
mind,  when  called  upon  to  direct  the  destinies  of 
a  nation,  to  anticipate  events  and  act  accordingly. 
How  does  Pombal  bear  this  test?  To  that 
question  there  can  be,  I  think,  but  one  answer: 
that  so  very  complacently  indeed  did  Pombal 
regard  the  present,  that  he  was  apt  to  forget  even 
the  past  entirely.  Pombal's  statemanship  was  too 
much  a  matter  of  impulse.  He  did  not  regulate 
himself  by  events,  but  caused  events  to  regulate 
themselves  by  him.  Herein  is  the  reason  why 
the  grand  schemes  which  created  his  political 
reputation  were,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  dis- 
solved before  him. 

"The  administration  of  Pombal  was  peculiarly 
English  in  its  character  and  objects,"  wrote  the 
Count  of  Carnota  in  his   Memoirs   of  Pombal^ 

^  The  Count  of  Carnota's  Marquis  de  Pombal  and  Mr.  Smith's 
Memoirs  of  the  Marquis  de  Pombal  are  two  editions  of  the  same 


Marqtcis  de  Pombal         9i 

published  in  English — "a  work  which,"  to  quote 
the  criticism  of  the  Edinburgh  Review^  **is  an 
indiscriminate  defence  of  the  Marquis,  and  which 
has  no  real  historical  value."  So  exceedingly 
remote  from  either  truth  or  verisimilitude  is  this 
amazing  assertion  made  by  the  Count  of  Carnota, 
that  we  cannot  help  but  remark  that,  if  he  did  at 
all  study  English  political  institutions,  he  seems 
not  to  have  seen  in  them  anything  worthy  of 
copying  for  his  country.  Pombal  was  no  doubt 
several  years  in  England  (from  1739-45),  when 
Envoy  to  the  Court  of  St.  James,  but  he  does 
not  seem  to  have  profited  much  by  his  stay  in 
England.  To  begin  with,  he  never  acquired  a 
knowledge  of  the  English  language — a  fault  which 
his  admirers  minimise  by  the  fact  that  French 
was  the  language  spoken  at  the  Court  of 
George  11.  He  undoubtedly  regarded  the  ad- 
ministration of  Sir  Robert  Walpole  with  admiration, 
and  perhaps  even  entertained  the  idea  that  his 
stay  in  England  qualified  him  to  rule  the  destinies 
of  his  country.  Although  Walpole  cannot  be 
said  to  have  been  distinguished  for  strict  adher- 
ence to  any  principle,  he  was  a  statesman,  and 

work,  the  author  having  received  a  title  between  the  pubHcation  of 
the  two  editions. 

^  Vide  Edinburgh  Review  for  August  1872-October   J  872,  p. 
i8j. 


^       Portagaese  Monarchy 

Pombal  could  never  imitate  him,  for  he  lacked 
the  great  quality  of  Walpole — **the  power  of 
judging  new  and  startling  events  in  the  moment 
of  excitement  or  panic  as  they  would  be  judged 
by  ordinary  men  when  the  excitement,  the  novelty, 
and  the  panic  had  passed  " — a  quality  ascribed  to 
Walpole  by  Lecky  in  his  review  of  English 
history  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

In  order  to  arrive  at  a  correct  estimate  of 
Pombal,  it  is  necessary  to  call  attention  to  the 
fact  that  his  elevation,  like  that  of  Ripperda, 
exceeded  his  early  expectations/  His  start  in 
life  was  due  to  an  uncle's  liberality,  and  he  made 
his  way  in  life  by  attaching  himself^  to  those 
who  had  places  to  bestow.  His  political  activity 
was  therefore  subsidiary  to  his  ambitions,  and  it 
was  this  thirst  for  power  that  inclined  him  towards 
a  reactionary  policy.     He    knew    that   in   those 

^  King  John  v,  tired  at  the  importunities  of  Pombal,  had  dehvered 
himself  to  this  effect :  "  Why  will  you  be  always  pestering  me 
about  this  man  ?  Do  you  want  to  fill  my  kingdom  with  troubles 
and  sedition  ?  You  think,  perhaps,  I  am  not  acquainted  with  the 
extent  of  his  capacity  ;  but  I  am,  and  know  that  he  is  fit  for  nothing 
but  the  governing  of  a  chandler's  shop  or,  at  best,  for  the  chicanery 
of  the  law,  and  would  shortly  set  you  all  together  at  variance  ; 
besides,  I  know  the  hardness  of  his  heart  that  is  covered  with  hair." 
Vide  Memoirs  of  the  Court  of  Portugal  and  the  Administration  of 
the  Count  d'  Oyeras  (M.  de  Pombal),  taken  from  a  series  of  original 
letters  written  in  French,  p.  15. 

2  It  was  the  protection  of  the  Cardinal  Motta  that  secured  him 
the  post  of  Portuguese  Minister  in  London. 


Marqtiis  de  Pombal         93 

days  good  family  connections  and  consanguinity 
were  of  much  more  avail  than  intellect,  and  he 
worked  towards  that  end.  He  eloped,  or  rather 
abducted,  a  lady  of  the  highest  rank,  Dona 
Thereza  de  Noronha,  niece  of  the  Count  of  Arcos. 
After  her  death  he  married  Countess  Daun,  a 
relative  of  the  celebrated  marshal  of  that  name, 
who  was  known  to  be  intimate  with  the  Queen 
Consort  of  Portugal,  formerly  an  Austrian 
Princess. 

Pombal  throughout  his  life  posed  as  an 
aristocrat.  When  he  became  all-powerful  he 
advanced  his  brothers,  though  they  were  un- 
educated, to  the  highest  and  most  responsible 
positions  in  the  reign  of  Joseph  i,  and  their 
descendants  hold  to-day  titles  of  nobility. 

To  push  his  way  in  Portugal  he  had  to  wage 
war  against  the  nobility  and  the  Jesuits,  and  the 
attempt  on  the  life  of  King  Joseph  afforded  him 
a  pretext  to  root  out  the  Society  of  Jesuits  and 
persecute  the  Portuguese  nobility.  The  con- 
spiracy against  the  King,  which  is  known  as  the 
"Conspiracy  of  the  Tavoras,"  was  undoubtedly 
a  serious  event.  Some  of  the  greatest  names  of 
the  Portuguese  artistocracy  were  involved  in  it. 
But  it  is  questionable  if  assassination  really 
stepped   in   to   work   out   certain   purposes   that 


94        Portagaese  Monarchy 

Pombal  attributed  to  its  promoters,  or  if  the 
conspiracy  was  invented  by  the  Portuguese 
dictator  to  frighten  the  young  King  —  a  con- 
clusion at  which  Caldas  Cordeiro  arrives,  whose 
modern  researches  on  this  subject  have  enabled 
him  to  make  an  impartial  survey  of  the  whole 
question.  But  Pombal's  hand  was  laid  heavily 
on  the  nobility,  and  he  knew  they  bore  him  !no 
love.  The  nobility,  with  the  part  they  had  taken 
in  setting  John  iv,  the  ancestor  of  Joseph  i,  on 
the  throne,  claimed  a  right  to  a  voice  in  the 
affairs  of  the  State ;  but  they  were  to  be  blamed 
not  only  for  not  having  established,  at  the  accession 
of  the  House  of  Bragan9a,  any  constitution  of 
government,  but  for  letting  power  slip  from  their 
hands,  with  the  result  that,  when  Pombal  pro- 
claimed himself  a  dictator,  they  were  the  natural 
prey  of  such  a  tyrant. 

In  his  attempt  to  found  an  absolute  monarchy 
and  retain  supreme  power  during  his  own  life 
he  revived  the  methods  of  a  Tiberius.  Finding 
a  pretext  in  the  conspiracy  against  the  King,  he 
erected  scaffolds  on  the  quay  by  the  river  at 
Belem.  His  heart  gloated  over  the  agony  of 
a  Tavora  or  Aveiro.  The  Marquis  of  Tavora, 
representing  the  most  illustrious  Portuguese 
family  descended  from  the  kings  of   Leon,  who 


Marquis  de  Pombal  95 

had  served  his  country  with  considerable  dis- 
tinction as  Viceroy  of  India,  had  his  limbs  broken, 
alive !  Such,  likewise,  was  the  fate  of  the  Duke 
of  Aveiro,  a  man  of  illustrious  lineage  and  a 
connection  of  the  Royal  Family.  This  is  not  all. 
Even  innocent  children  suffered  at  his  hands. 
The  children  of  the  Marquis  d'  Alvina,  three  of 
them  under  ten  years  of  age,  were  cast  into 
prison  to  expiate  no  other  crime  but  that  of  their 
father,  who  had  married  a  Tavora !  The  son  of 
the  Duke  of  Aveiro,  an  infant,  was  tyrannically 
cast  into  prison.  The  list  of  atrocities  committed 
by  Pombal  is  a  long  one.  The  Marquises  of 
Gouveia,  Alvina,  and  of  Ponte  de  Lima,  the 
Counts  of  Obidos,  Ribeira,  and  S.  Louren^o, 
all  cast  for  unknown  crimes  into  the  Bastille 
of  Junqueira,  were  also  victims  of  his  fury. 
Every  lonely  tower,  every  subterranean  dungeon, 
was  filled  with  State  prisoners. 

It  would  not,  perhaps,  be  fair  to  judge  Pombal 
by  the  ethical  standard  of  a  much  later  date,  or 
to  condemn  him  from  a  much  too  modern  point 
of  view.  But  even  the  spirit  of  the  age  cannot 
be  pleaded  in  the  defence  of  the  evil-doer.  In 
an  age  growing  daily  more  liberal  and  enlightened 
there  could  be  no  justification  for  such  odious 
measures  of  repression.     Pombal  sinned  outrage- 


96        Porttigticse  Monarchy 

ously  against  the  Portuguese  virtue  of  liberty — 
so  outrageously  that  he  must  be  pilloried  by  all 
right-minded  men.  Not  content  with  seeing  his 
enemies  butchered  on  the  scaffold  and  their  chil- 
dren torn  from  their  mothers  and  cast  into  prison, 
he  published  a  law  making  it  treason  to  speak 
ill  of  the  Minister!  Even  the  trade  of  the 
delator  became  respectable,  and  the  400,000 
crusados  which  were  assigned  as  salary  gave 
a  chance  to  the  professional  delator.  The  pro- 
fession grew  in  reputation  and  emolument,  and 
the  most  harmless  words  or  thoughtless  gestures 
were  often  twisted  into  acts  of  treason  by  the 
subtle  chicanery  of  the  official  delator. 

And  yet  his  name  stands  foremost  in  the 
calendar  of  some  Portuguese  democrats !  He 
is  worshipped  as  a  champion  of  liberty.  He 
was  a  votary  of  liberty,  whose  liberty  was  the 
mere  right  of  the  man  in  power  to  oppress  all 
others.  And  if  there  be  one  fact  more  than 
another  in  his  life  which  affects  his  character,  it 
is  this  revolting  persecution  of  his  own  enemies 
that  he  believed  were  the  enemies  of  the  State. 

It  has  been  asserted  that  Sully  became  his 
model.  But  the  difference  between  the  Minister 
of  Joseph  I  and  the  Minister  of  Henry  iv  is  a 
wide  one.     Pombal  never  had  the  amicable  and 


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MARQUIS  DE   POMBAL 
(1699-1782) 


Marquis  de  Pombal  97 

reconciliatory  disposition  of  a  Sully.  More  eager 
than  the  King  himself  to  avenge  the  wrongs  of  the 
Royal  House,  he  was  unable  to  see  one  layer  of 
public  opinion  through  another  and  act  accordingly. 

"The  great  character  given  of  this  Minister," 
wrote  Major  William  Dalrymple,  ''seems  to  me 
to  be  not  just ;  to  retain  his  power,  which  has 
been  established  by  destruction  and  oppressive 
means,  to  enrich  himself  and  gratify  his  vanity, 
are  his  springs  of  action  ;  the  welfare  of  the  State 
or  happiness  of  the  people  are  only  secondary 
considerations ;  he  has  rendered  the  tyranny 
complete,  and  destruction  awaits  him  who  dares 
oppose  it."  Such  was  the  impartial  opinion  of 
an  Englishman  in  his  Travels  through  Spain  and 
Portugal  in  1774.^ 

But  what  remained  of  Pombal's  twenty-seven 
years'  rule  ?  It  has  been  said  that  during  his 
administration^  Portugal  was  steadily  resuming 
a  considerable  position  in  the  family  of  nations, 
and  that  the  finances  of  the  kingdom  had 
recovered  their  equilibrium. 

^  Vide  Travels  through  Spain  and  Portugal  in  1774,  by  Major 
William  Dalrymple,  p.  143. 

2  The  very  plan  of  administration  followed  by  Pombal  was  not 
his  own.  Very  few  know  that  the  plan  was  supplied  to  him  by 
Dom  Luis  da  Cunha,  a  nobleman  residing  in  Paris.  Those  who 
may  doubt  the  veracity  of  this  assertion  have  only  to  read  the 
correspondence  that  passed  between  the  two. 
7 


98        Portttgtiese  Monarchy 

It  is  true  that  he  aimed  at  improving  the 
financial  conditions  of  his  country,  that  he 
tried  to  establish  a  national  system  of  technical 
education,  that  he  reorganised  the  army  and 
decreed  the  abolition  of  slavery.  But  what  of 
the  measures  and  methods  to  enforce  his  policy  ? 
His  economic  policy,  which  suggests  how  badly 
he  copied  the  policy  of  Colbert,  has,  fortunately, 
almost  unanimously  been  condemned  as  vicious 
in  principle  and  disastrous  in  its  results.  Pombal, 
with  tendencies  for  a  system  in  which  he  might 
have  most  power  of  direction,  circumscribed 
commerce  in  every  branch  by  the  erection  of 
extensive  monopolies.  The  Minister,  in  the  name 
of  the  King,  was  a  kind  of  first  manufacturer,  who 
compelled  the  nation  to  purchase  her  commodities 
at  the  price  set  by  him.  He  decreed  highly 
protectionist,  at  times  prohibitive,  custom-house 
reo^ulations  with  the  intention  of  erectino^  in 
Portugal  model  manufactures  and  securing  to 
her  the  production  of  such  articles  as  she  obtained 
from  abroad — regulations  which  naturally  en- 
gendered reprisals  and  seriously  hindered  the 
Portuguese  commerce.  As  a  necessary  corollary 
to  this  madhouse  legislation,  he  reinforced  an 
ancient  law  existing  in  Portugal  and  issued  an 
edict  prohibiting  gold  and   precious    stones   that 


Marquis  de  Pombal  99 

were   annually   imported   from  Brazil   and  other 
colonies  to  be  exported  without  his  permission ! 

In  the  decree  constituting  the  General  Com- 
pany of  Grand  Para  and  Maranhao  he  pushed 
the  monopoly  to  the  farthest  extreme,  with  the 
result  that  it  put  their  trade  in  the  most  dis- 
tressing condition.  The  results  were  disastrous. 
The  commerce  of  Brazil  had  greatly  diminished. 
The  trade  of  Pernambuco  that,  in  1759,  employed 
forty-five  ships,  in  the  year  1772  employed  only 
eigfhteen.  His  name  is  also  linked  with  measures 
such  as  the  foundation  of  the  Oporto  Wine  Com- 
pany with  the  object  of  increasing  the  wine  in- 
dustry, that  only  source  of  wealth  of  Portugal,  which 
he  put  under  the  control  of  a  monopoly !  But 
the  statistics  of  exportation  of  wines  during  the 
years  1750  to  1763  tell  the  sad  tale  of  Pombal's 
schemes  that  were  intended  to  make  the  country 
wealthy.  During  the  years  1750  to  1756 — that 
is  to  say,  seven  years  before  the  monopoly  began 
— the  total  exportation  of  wines  amounted  to 
107,013  casks;  and  during  the  years  1757  to 
1763,  the  first  seven  years  of  the  monopoly,  the 
number  of  casks  exported  was  107,095.  In  other 
words,  Pombal,  to  make  his  country  richer  by 
82  casks,  thought  it  necessary  to  behead  13 
men  and  4  women,  cast  25  persons   into  prison 


100      Porttigtcese  Monarchy 

for  life,  and  banish  86  persons  to  different  parts 
of  the  country. 

As  might  have  been  expected,  his  scheme 
failed  in  its  objects.  As  if  commercial  welfare 
could  be  decreed  or  effected  by  an  edict ! 

Such  were  the  disastrous  effects  of  Pombal's 
policy.  As  a  matter^  of  fact,  the  Minister  of 
Joseph  I  had  no  economic  knowledge  whatever. 
**  He  began  everything  at  the  wrong  end,"  said 
Link  of  Pombal,  in  his  travels.  **  He  was 
desirous  at  first,"  wrote  the  German,  **  of  estab- 
lishing manufactures  everywhere  ;  then  he  changed 
his  object  to  agriculture,  and  then  to  the  fishery." 

His  foreign  policy  was  not  in  any  way  better 
than  his  economic  policy.  There  is  not  a  single 
alliance  or  negotiation  that  can  be  pointed  out 
to  have  given  Portugal  the  least  advantage,  and 
this  notwithstanding  the  fact  of  his  sending 
Ministers  to  all  the  Courts  of  Europe.  But  those 
representatives  of  the  nation  abroad,  deprived  of 
all  initiative,  were  kept  as  mere  automata  upon 
whom  Pombal  might  put  the  blame  for  all 
unsuccess  as  far  as  his  dictatorial  policy  was 
concerned. 

Pombal,  throughout  his  twenty-seven  years  of 
administration,  had  a  distinct  motive  that  guided 
all  his  acts — so  distinct  that,  amidst  the  deviation 


Marquis  de  Pombal        loi 

which  the  other  motive  forces  produce  in  him, 
one  can  recognise  it  still.  His  greatest  object 
was  to  exalt  his  Royal  masters  prerogatives. 
He  wanted  to  make  the  King  more  absolute  than 
ever,  because  he  knew  that  the  King  in  return 
would  maintain  him  in  power.  He  did  not  hang 
noblemen  to  avenge  the  people  from  the  wrongs 
they  suffered,  but  to  consolidate  the  power  of  an 
absolute  monarch.  When  he  aimed  at  the 
equalisation  of  all  classes  by  doing  away  with 
the  distinction  between  the  old  and  the  new  Chris- 
tians, by  which  the  descendants  of  the  converted 
Jews  and  Moors  were  given  equal  rights  and  con- 
sidered eligible  for  civil,  military,  and  ecclesiastical 
offices ;  when  he  decreed  the  abolition  of  slavery 
and  attempted  to  free  the  Indians  of  Brazil — 
it  was  not  to  defend  the  people's  liberties.  He 
who  had  asserted  by  his  acts  that  the  people 
as  a  body  politic  had  been  annulled  by  the  Crown 
cannot  be  said  to  have  worked  for  the  cause  of 
liberalism.  He  was  fashioning  events  in  his 
own  way,  and  at  the  same  time  impressing  falsely 
the  world  with  his  so-called  liberal  measures ; 
and  Pombal  acted  this  part  with  as  much 
detriment  to  his  own  reputation  as  prejudice  to 
the  advancement  of  liberalism. 

Such  is  the  summary  of  Pombal's  administra- 


102      Porttcgtiese  Monarchy 

tion,  which  rests  on  racks,  gibbets,  and  dungeons. 
The  opinion  that  has  condemned  him  is  not  only 
confined  to  those  whose  obtuse  prejudice  is  said 
to  have  denied  to  Pombal  the  fame  he  deserves. 
It  has  the  support  of  men  like  Camillo  Castello 
Branco,  Latino  Coelho,  Luiz  Soriano,  Ramalho 
Ortigao,  and  Theophilo  Braga,  who  may  claim 
recognition  as  authoritative  representatives  of 
Portuguese  historical  criticism. 

The  career  of  Pombal  closed  with  the  reign 
of  Joseph  I,  who  died  in  1777.  Pombal  was 
tried,  and  the  tribunal  found  him  guilty. 


A  NATIONS  DISTRESS 

MEANWHILE,  time  was  healing  hurts, 
assuaging  sorrows,  wearing  away  anti- 
pathies created  by  Pombal's  despotic  rule,  until 
the  great  movement  of  the  Revolution  in  France 
began. 

The  French  movement  had  proved  not  so 
much  the  creation  of  a  new  order  of  things  as 
the  destruction  of  all  that  preceded-  it.  The 
doctrine  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  as  pre- 
sented by  the  French  Revolution  had  threatened 
the  very  foundation  of  monarchies.  John  vi, 
then  Prince  Regent,  in  self-defence  and,  perhaps, 
with  the  object  of  weakening  the  French  party  in 
Portugal,  which  was  formed  in  the  time  of  the 
Succession  War  and  was  now  strengthened  by 
the  French  Revolution,  exercised  his  power, 
which,  however  lawful,  was  not  reconcilable  with 
any  ideas  of  liberty.  He  tried  to  suppress  all 
movement  of  adherence  to  the  principles  pro- 
claimed by  the  French  Revolutionaries.     And  he 


104      Porttigaese  Monarchy 

found  in  the  famous  PIna  Manique,  the  Intendent 
of  Police,  once  the  right  hand  of  the  Marquis  de 
Pombal,  the  man  to  carry  his  reactionary  poHcy. 
Anybody    who     openly    sympathised    with    the 
French  movement  was  charo^ed  with  nothino^  less 
than  seditious  and  subversive  designs.     The  well- 
known   poet,   Bocage,  and  other   men  of  letters 
were  persecuted.     Francisco  Coelho  da  Silva,  the 
father   of   Portuguese   liberalism,    was   cast   into 
prison.     The  Duke  of  Lafoes,   the  great  patron 
of  literature,  was  expelled  from  Court  for  having 
offered    hospitality    to    Broussonet,    the    famous 
secretary   of   Necker.     The    French    movement, 
however,  resulted  in  atrocities,  and  the  exhaustion 
which  followed  led  to  the  usurpation  of  Napoleon. 
The  reaction  which  Robespierre  had  begun  was 
brought  to  a  head  by  the    military  outrages  of 
Napoleon.     The  aspirations  of  the  great  Corsican 
after  universal   empire   seemed  on  the  point  of 
being  realised.     The   eagles  of   Napoleon   were 
planted    in    almost   every  capital    of  continental 
Europe.     His  great  successes  had  entitled  him 
to    dictate    terms    to    Germany,    Italy,    Prussia, 
Holland,  and    Switzerland.      And    now  he   had 
turned  his   attention   to   the   monarchies  of  the 
Peninsula.      But    his    designs    against    Portugal 
had  been  of  very  long  standing.     The  dethrone- 


A  Nation's  Distress        105 

ment  of  the  Spanish  House  of  Bourbon  brought 
the  matter  to  a  head.  Moreover,  he  looked 
upon  Portugal  in  the  same  way  as  the  Conven- 
tion, the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  and  the 
Directory  had  done,  namely,  as  a  province  of 
England. 

So,  on  the  12th  of  August  1807,  Portugal  was 
formally  summoned,  in  the  terms  of  the  secret 
article  of  the  Treaty  of  Tilsit,  to  close  instantly 
her  ports  against  England,  to  detain  all  English- 
men residing  in  Portugal,  and  to  confiscate  all 
English  property  within  her  dominions.  In  other 
words,  she  was  asked  to  co-operate  in  Napoleon's 
continental  system  for  the  commercial  ruin  of 
England.  The  Prince  Regent  not  having  com- 
plied at  once  with  all  these  demands,  the  French 
seized  all  Portuguese  vessels  harbouring  in  France 
and  Holland.  The  Prince  Regent,  to  wriggle 
out  of  difficulties  in  the  best  way  his  weak,  vacil- 
lating nature  permitted  him,  made  some  conces- 
sions to  Napoleon,  which,  however,  were  speedily 
succeeded  by  violent  reaction.  He  complied 
partly  with  Napoleon's  demand,  and  at  the  same 
time  informed  England  secretly  that  he  was  in 
that  way  appeasing  Napoleon's  wrath,  and  assured 
her  that  he  was  willing  to  pay  an  indemnity  for 
the  losses  sustained  by  her.     He  was,  perhaps,  not 


106      Portagacse  Monarchy 

much  to  be  blamed  for  what  he  did.  One 
may  query  whether  to  comply  with  Napoleon's 
demands,  or  later,  influenced  by  the  counsels 
of  the  British  Ambassador,  to  abandon  the 
country — leaving  the  people  to  whom  he  owed 
the  throne  a  prey  to  invasion  by  a  tyrant — 
and  embark  for  Brazil,  was  the  more  repre- 
hensible. 

Anyhow,  Napoleon's  vehemence  of  will  and 
fixedness  of  purpose  was  not  to  be  altered  by 
a  pusillanimous  prince.  The  consequences  of 
such  a  hide-and-seek  policy  were  disastrous  to 
Portugal.  England  took  possession  of  Madeira, 
and  threatened  her  ally  with  the  occupation 
of  the  Portuguese  possessions  in  India.  And 
Napoleon  had  a  treaty  signed  at  Fontainebleau 
by  Eugenio  Isquierdo,  a  plenipotentiary  of  His 
Catholic  Majesty,  and  Marshal  Duroc  in  the 
name  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French,  by  which 
the  partition  of  Portugal  and  the  division  of  her 
colonies  between  the  signatories  of  that  instrument 
was  agreed  on.  The  provinces  of  Entre  Douro 
and  Minho  were  to  be  erected  into  a  separate 
sovereignty  for  the  King  of  Etruria  with  the  title 
of  King  of  Northern  Lusitania,  and  Alemtejo  and 
Algarve  had  been  allotted  to  Godoy,  who  was  to 
enjoy  the  title  of  Prince  of  the  Algarves.     And 


A  Nation's  Distress        107 

to  carry  on  this  scheme  of  unblushing  rapine 
Napoleon  ordered,  early  in  November  of  the 
year  1807,  ^^e  army  of  Gironde,  commanded  by 
Marshal  Junot,  to  cross  the  Pyrenees  and  advance 
on  Salamanca. 

Junot  crossed  the  Portuguese  frontier  on 
the  20th  of  November,  and  ten  days  later  he 
was  entering  Lisbon.  The  Royal  emigrant,  with 
his  family  and  Court,  had  hardly  left  the  Tagus 
on  board  an  English  ship  for  Brazil  when 
Junot,  who  had  formerly  resided  at  the  Court  of 
Portugal  as  an  ambassador  from  France,  entered 
Lisbon  and  declared  the  Bragan9a  family  to  have 
forfeited  the  throne.  Meantime,  the  Spaniards 
were  occupying  the  south  of  Portugal  in  the 
name  of  the  Queen  of  Etruria. 

Junot  entered  Lisbon  proclaiming  the  sole 
object  of  his  invasion  to  be  **  the  emancipation 
of  her  government  from  the  yoke  of  England 
and  to  enable  it  to  assume  the  attitude  of  an 
independent  power."  Such  was  the  bait  with 
which  Portugal  was  to  be  lured  on  to  her  ruin. 
But  to  Napoleon  the  occupation  of  Portugal  was 
only  a  means  of  attaining  his  ulterior  objects,  an 
opportunity  for  iniquitous  expoliation,  an  occasion 
for  robbery. 

The    nation,     however,     was     at    a    loss    to 


108      Portagtiese  Monarchy 

know  in  what  light  that  proclamation  was  to 
be  regarded.  The  Prince  Regent,  by  pre- 
ferring to  run  away  to  a  place  of  safety  to 
sharing  the  misfortunes  of  his  people,  had  dis- 
credited himself  and  the  Portuguese  monarchy 
before  the  eyes  of  the  nation.  The  destiny  of 
the  country  at  this  time  possesses  a  mournful 
interest.  It  is  a  confession  of  political  imbecility. 
People  could  not  grasp  the  fact  that  Napoleon 
was  incapable  of  withstanding  the  snares  of  greed 
and  vanity,  that  his  rule  was  in  direct  opposi- 
tion to  national  instincts.  They  saw  in  their 
oppressors  the  heroes  of  Marengo,  Austerlitz,  and 
Jena,  and  in  their  admiration  they  neglected  to 
notice  those  factors  which  were  carrying  the 
nation  to  destruction. 

When  the  Portuguese  saw  themselves  handed 
over  from  the  Bragan^as  to  the  Bonapartes,  they 
offered  no  resistance  to  the  invading  armies.  To 
a  letter  received  by  the  Marquis  of  Alorna,  Com- 
mander at  Elvas,  from  the  Spanish  Governor  of 
Badajoz,  stating  that  **  A  Spanish  and  French 
army  is  about  to  enter  Portugal  through  your 
province.  I  wish  to  know  whether  they  may 
expect  to  be  received  as  friends  or  as  enemies,"  the 
reply  of  that  Marquis  had  been,  "We  are  unable  to 
entertain  you  as  friends  or  to  resist  you  as  enemies." 


A  Nation's  Distress        109 

.  .  .  This  is  not  all.  The  Council  of  Regency- 
had  cravenly  submitted  to  the  French  General. 
At  Santarem  a  deputation  of  the  Freemasons 
of  Portugal  in  their  democratic  enthusiasm  had 
welcomed  Junot.  The  bodies  politic  in  the  nation 
had  given  to  Junot's  proclamation  all  its  life  and 
validity.  To  Portugal's  great  shame,  even  the 
three  estates  of  the  realm  were  to  be  assembled 
to  proclaim  the  French  King !  But  the  Portu- 
guese were  to  experience  soon  the  iniquities  of 
Napoleon's  rule.  Junot,  to  whom  600,000  francs 
had  been  assigned  as  Governor-General,  had  carried 
out  his  chiefs  orders  so  well  that  he  had  not  only 
raised  5,000,000  francs  on  his  own  account,  but 
had  the  French  flag  hoisted  up  on  the  13th 
December  1 807  in  the  fortress  of  St.  George  ! 
It  was  only  then  that  a  feeling  of  degradation,  a 
desire  to  revenge  their  wrongs  upon  the  French 
oppressors,  sprung  up  in  Portugal.  And  Junot, 
whose  services  had  already  won  him  the  title  of 
Duke  of  Abrantes,  had  to  seek  Napoleon's  advice 
in  a  letter  addressed  to  him  on  the  2  ist  December  ; 
and  the  "pretended  friend"  of  the  Portuguese, 
after  remonstrating  with  his  General  for  his  neglect 
in  not  executing  his  orders  **to  disarm  the  in- 
habitants, send  away  the  Portuguese  troops,  make 
severe  examples,  maintain  an  attitude  of  severity 


110      Portagtiese  Monarchy 

which  will  make  you  feared,"  ^  was  writing  to 
Junot,  in  his  letter  dated  7th  January  1808,  "  In 
all  this  I  do  not  see  the  man  who  has  been  trained 
in  my  school  .  .  .  shoot  sixty  people  or  so  and 
take  suitable  measures  .  .  .  you  are  in  a  conquered 
country.'' 

But  nevertheless  there  began  in  the  provinces 
of  Algarve,  Alemtejo,  Beira,  and  Extremadura 
a  movement  against  the  invaders.  Balsemao 
was  sent  to  seek  help  from  England,  and  on  the 
1st  of  August,  nine  thousand  men,  commanded  by 
Sir  Arthur  Wellesley,  the  famous  conqueror  of 
^Assaye,  that  England  had  sent  to  help  her  ally, 
and  who  was  to  be  the  hero  of  Waterloo,  landed 
at  Buarcos.  Eight  thousand  Portuguese  under 
Bernardino  Freire  d'  Andrade  joined  him.  Soon 
after,  thirteen  thousand  men  under  Spenser  arrived. 
The  battle  of  Roli^a  was  fought  and  won.  On 
the  2 1  St  of  the  month  the  great  battle  of  Vimieiro 
was  fought,  and  on  the  30th  Junot,  after  suffering 
defeats  and  reverses,  was  signing  the  Convention 
of  Cintra,  which  broke  the  spell  of  French  invinci- 
bility and  forced  the  French  General  to  give  up 
all  the  fortresses  in  his  possession  and  evacuate 
Portugal. 

1  Vide  Lettres  Inedites  de  Napoleon  /,  An.  VIII. — 181 5 — publiees 
par  Leon  Lecestre,  vol.  i.  p.  1 36. 


A  Nation's  Distress        iii 

The  expulsion  of  Junot  in  1808  was,  however, 
followed  by  the  invasion  commanded  by  the 
Marquis  of  Soult — an  invasion  memorable  for 
the  shameless  pillage  of  Oporto  by  the  French 
troops ;  but  Soult  was  not  able  to  face  the  com- 
bined strategy  of  a  Wellington,  a  Beresford,  and 
Francisco  de  Silveira  Pinto,  which  compelled  him 
to  evacuate  the  country.  Massena,  who  came 
after  him,  though  he  devastated  the  provinces 
of  Beira  and  Extremadura,  had  also  to  dis- 
appear in  disgraceful  flight  from  the  Portuguese 
territory. 

The  days  following  the  evacuation  of  Portugal 
by  the  French  army  were  days  that  had  thrown 
the  very  existence  of  the  nation  into  doubt  and 
impotence.  The  fall  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte  at 
Waterloo  brought  peace  to  Europe,  but  that  peace 
found  Portugal  in  the  most  distressing  condition. 
Practically  exhausted  of  her  resources  by  a  war, 
including  three  invasions  by  a  devastating  foe 
that  had  torn  up  her  vineyards,  trampled  down 
her  cornfields,  pillaged  the  inhabitants,  and  robbed 
her  abbeys  and  churches — a  foe  that,  in  his  thirst 
for  gold,  had  even  desecrated  the  grave  of  a 
hapless   queen  ^   and  wrenched  off  the   slabs  of 

^  Dona  Ignez  de  Castro,  whose  tragedy  called  forth  the  pathetic 
strains  of  Camoes. 


112      Portagtiese  Monarchy 

the  graves  of  early  kings  of  Portugal  —  and 
deprived  of  the  best  of  her  population  that  she 
had  let  her  ally  turn  into  soldiers  to  free  Europe 
from  the  shadow  of  a  French  Empire,  Portugal 
was  a  nation  with  her  trade  annihilated  and  her 
manufactures  paralysed.  She  could  evoke 
military  glories  achieved  in  the  Peninsular  War, 
but  could  hardly  pay  the  loans  imposed  on  her 
by  the  expenses  of  the  war.  The  peace  with 
France  had  cost  seventeen  millions  of  francs 
in  addition  to  the  ten  millions  extorted  by 
Napoleon,  and  paper  money  had  been  issued  to 
save  the  situation.  This  was  the  most  fiery 
ordeal  through  which  any  nation  could  be  doomed 
to  pass.  There  was,  of  course,  a  feeling  of 
anxiety  as  to  how  the  Prince  Regent's  ministers 
in  Portugal  were  going  to  work  towards  the 
relief  of  the  nation.  But  they  were  quite 
paralytic.  The  misunderstanding  of  their  duties 
was  the  more  serious  seeing  that  their  utter 
inability  had  led  Beresford  to  go  to  Brazil  and 
obtain  a  decree  by  which  the  Prince  Regent 
more  or  less  delegated  to  him  all  the  powers  of 
government.  He  had  been  invested  with  an 
absolute  power  over  the  Portuguese  army  inde- 
pendently of  any  government  in  the  kingdom. 
The  consequences  of  this  step  were  such  as  might 


A  Nation's  Distress        ii3 

inevitably  be  expected.     Beresford  possessed,  in 

an  eminent  degree,  all  the  qualities  of  a  military 

man.     The   benefits  which   that   British  general 

conferred   on    the    Portuguese   army   cannot    be 

ignored ;     but    his    discipline    carried    him    too 

far.     He  took  the  reins  of  government  into  his 

hands    and    arrogated    to    himself    the    powers 

of   a    proconsul.      He    governed    Portugal,    now 

reduced  to  the  situation  of  a  mere    dependency 

on    the    Brazils,    in    the    name    of    a    regency 

that      had     been     appointed     in     the     absence 

of    John    VI,    then    Prince    Regent    residing    in 

Brazil. 

The  period  that  follows  the   Peninsular  War 

attests  a  continued  interference   of  the    English 

in    the    internal    affairs    of    the    country.      The 

interference  was  such    that,  to  quote  the  words 

of  a  well-known  Portuguese  historian,  **  Portugal 

shook   off  the    French   yoke,   but  threw  herself, 

as   it    were,    into   the  arms  of   England."     The 

peace  of  Paris  in    1814  had  been  disastrous  to 

Portugal.      Spain    had    evaded    the    restitution 

of   Olivenza   which   had    been    provided   for   by 

the  Congress  of  Vienna,  and  Portugal  had  been 

made  to   restore  some   part   of   French    Guiana 

taken  from    the    French.     But   this  interference 

was,  it  must  be  owned,  the  result  of  the  passions 
8 


114      Portagtiese  Monarchy 

and  divisions  of  the  Portuguese  people,  and  was, 
perhaps,  provoked  by  the  weakness  of  the  Portu- 
guese, who  had  let   their  rights  slip  from   their 
hands ;   but  interference  with  a  sovereign  inde- 
pendent power  cannot  be  justified.     Sir  Charles 
Stuart,  afterwards  Lord  Stuart  de  Rothesay,  the 
British    Ambassador    at    Lisbon,    and    Marshal 
Beresford,    for   instance,    were   members   of    the 
Portuguese  Regency,  and  **they,"  to  quote  Morse 
Stephens,     **  ruled    most     despotically."  ^       The 
English  did  not  go  knight-erranting  to  Portugal. 
It  may  reasonably  be  assumed  that,  if  England 
went  to  help  Portugal  to  free  herself  from   the 
oppressive  occupation  by  the  French,  it  was  not 
merely  to  extend  help  to  her  ally  in  distress,  but 
to  demonstrate  in  favour  of  a  nation  that  was 
suffering  for  her  fidelity  to  England.    The  reason, 
as  Canning  put  it  a  few  years  later,  in  one  of  the 
many  brilliant  speeches  that  champion  of  liberty 
delivered  in  the  House  of  Commons,  was  plain. 
**  Let  us  fly  to  the  aid  of  Portugal,"  said  the  great 
statesman,  "by  whomsoever  attacked,  because  it 
is  our  duty  to  do  so,  and  let  us  cease  that  inter- 
ference where  that  duty  ends.     We  go  to  Portugal 
not  to  rule,  not  to  dictate,  not  to  prescribe  consti- 

^  Vide  Portugal,  by  Morse  Stephens,  "  Story  of  the   Nations 
Series,"  p.  412. 


A  Nation's  Distress        115 

tutions,  but  to  preserve  the  independence  of  our 
ally/' 

Such  a  state  of  affairs  laid  the  foundation 
of  a  movement  which  circumstances  developed 
into  a  political  revolution.  This  was  only  natural. 
The  Portuguese,  conscious  of  the  fact  that  their 
indifferentism  in  politics  had  led  to  a  dissolution 
of  political  ties  and,  consequently,  to  the  death 
of  justice  and  liberty,  vindicated  their  position  of 
freedom  and  independence  in  a  movement  that 
was  to  overthrow  all  political  tyrannies.  The 
mistake  committed  in  the  past  seemed  suddenly 
discovered,  and  the  activity  to  correct  this  mis- 
take explained.  And  the  revolution  of  1820 
came  as  if  to  restore  the  old  principles  of  the 
Portuguese  Constitution,  if  by  Constitution  we 
understand  ''the  assemblage  of  those  publicly 
acknowledged  principles  which  are  deemed  funda- 
mental to  the  government  of  a  people  "^ — principles 
that  had  been  forgotten  through  the  ignorance 
of  the  people  and  the  usurpation  of  the  Crown. 
A  nation  that  had  sat  in  darkness  had  seen  a 
light,  and  seemed  to  be  eager  to  rise  and  live 
consistently  with  its  political  interests  and  with 
the  genius  of  its  ancient  institutions — institutions 
where  we  can  trace  the  progress  of  Portuguese 

^  Vide  Lieber's  Political  Ethics. 


116      Portagtiesc  Monarchy 

liberty  from  its  lowest  ebb  to  the  highest  to  which 
it  arrived,  and  which,  in  the  best  days  of  Portugal, 
were  a  check  upon  all  political  degradation. 
The  history  of  her  Cortes  that,  at  Lamego,^ 
proclaimed  the  right  of  the  nation  in  a  spirit 
equal  to  that  of  Magna  Charta,  which  came  into 
existence  seventy  years  later,  speaks  for  the 
constitutional  antiquity  of  the  kingdom.  The 
right  with  which  the  Cortes  invested  Dom 
Affonso  Henriques  as  the  first  King  of  Portugal, 
deposed  Dom  Sancho  ii,  raised  the  Duke  de 
Bragan^a  under  the  title  of  John  iv,  and  again 
sanctioned  the  deposition  of  Dom  Affonso  vi  and 
and  conferred  the  Regency  on  his  brother,  Dom 
Pedro  II,  not  only  acknowledges,  in  the  most 
unequivocal  manner,  the  sovereignty  of  the 
Portuguese  people,  but  shows  the  Cortes  as  an 
institution  grown  out  of  the  healthy  action  of  a 
people  and  developed  along  with  the  state  of 
society.  And  the  principles  which  they  success- 
fully assumed  or  relinquished  go  to  prove  that 
they  were  the  product  of  all  the  latent  forces  ot 
the  national  life  and   character.     They   did  not 

^  Alexandre  Herculano,  the  Portuguese  historian,  ridicules  the 
existence  of  the  first  meeting  of  the  Cortes  at  Lamego.  It  is 
assumed  that  the  original  record  does  not  exist.  England  does 
not  possess  the  original  of  her  own  Magna  Charta,  nevertheless 
every  Englishman  is  proud  of  it. 


A  Nation's  Distress        ii7 

only  afford  an  opportunity  of  bringing  before 
the  Crown  their  petition  for  redress  and  assistance, 
but  established  the  constitutional  principle  that 
the  three  states  of  the  realm  chosen  to  represent 
the  three  orders  of  the  community — if  it  is  **the 
spirit  and  purpose  rather  than  the  form  or  name 
of  institutions  to  be  regarded  the  essence  of 
representation  "  ^ — had  a  decided  voice  in  the 
government  of  the  country.  They  were  not  only 
a  consultative  but  also  a  legislative  body,  and 
the  statutes  which  were  framed  in  those  Cortes, 
which  no  Royal  Alvara  could  supersede,  were 
subsequently  embodied  in  the  '*  Ordena96es  do 
Reino"  that  were  the  law  of  the  country.  In 
the  Chronica  of  Duarte  Nunes  de  Leao  we  find 
a  page  that  points  to  one  of  her  many  triumphs. 
'*  The  King,"  writes  the  Chronicler  of  the  Cortes 
which  assembled  in  the  year  1352,  "went  from 
Lisbon  to  Cintra  to  hunt,  and  remained  nearly  a 
month  at  a  time,  when  the  Council  was  busy 
discussing  matters  of  great  importance  respecting 
the  government  of  the  kingdom.  When  he 
returned,  one  of  the  members,  in  the  name  of  the 
rest,  addressed  him  thus :  *  Sir,  you  ought  to 
amend  the  life  you  lead,  and  remember  that  you 
were  given  to  us  as  a  king  in  order  to  govern 

^  Vide  Political  Studies^  by  Hon.  Georgia  Brodrick. 


118       Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

us ;  and  for  this  reason  we  give  you  our  tribute 
and  maintain  you  in  honour,  whilst  you  follow 
the  chase  as  an  occupation  and  the  government  of 
your  kingdom  as  a  pastime  ;  whereas,  it  is  certain 
that  God  will  not  demand  of  you  the  number  of 
boars  and  stags  you  have  killed,  but  rather  of  the 
complaints  which  you  have  not  heard  and  the 
duties  you  have  not  performed.  For,  when  we 
are  treating  of  matters  of  the  highest  importance, 
you  have  absented  yourself  from  the  Council  in 
which  you  were  so  necessary,  and  have  gone  to 
the  chase,  leaving  us  here  idle  for  so  many  days 
waiting  for  you.  Reform,  or,  if  not,  we  will  seek 
another  king  who  may  govern  us  with  justice, 
and  not  abandon  the  government  of  his  subjects 
for  the  pursuit  after  wild  beasts.' " 

Such  was  the  language  addressed  in  the  old 
days,  by  the  representatives  of  the  people,  to  a 
king.  Several  causes,  however,  worked  together 
to  bring  about  the  state  of  affairs  which  compelled 
the  nation  to  neglect  their  political  rights,  and  not 
ensure  the  gradual  growth  of  constitutional  ideas 
and  the  development  of  a  respect  for  the  rights  of 
the  people.  Foremost  among  these  causes  was 
that,  at  the  accession  of  the  Bragan^a  family,  there 
was  never  established  any  constitution  of  govern- 
ment.    Although,  when  John  iv  was  acclaimed 


A  Nation's  Distress        ii9 

King,  the  Cortes  that  had  met  for  the  purpose 
of  recording  the  Royal  oath  declared  to  him  that 
**  they  delivered  the  throne  over  to  him  in  order 
to  rid  the  country  of  the  bad  government  of 
Castille,"  they  looked  too  much  upon  the  exalta- 
tion of  the  Crown,  and  deprived  themselves  of 
their  own  legislative  rights.  The  Bragan^a  family, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  so  wealthy,  that  besides 
its  own  revenue,  it  could  dispose  of  the  revenues 
belonging  to  several  orders  of  knighthood.  All 
this,  of  course,  enabled  the  monarchy  to  dispense 
with  the  Cortes.  Had  the  Cortes  continued  to 
assemble,  the  revolution  of  1820  would  therefore 
not  have  occurred. 

The  revolution  was  now  an  accomplished 
fact.  In  April  1820  Marshal  Beresford  had 
sailed  for  Brazil.  The  secret  society  known  as 
the  **Synedrio"  had  done  its  work  before  his 
return,  which  was  not  till  the  following  October. 

On  the  23rd  August  1820,  Oporto  raised  the 
Constitutional  cry.  The  proclamation,  signed  by 
Colonel  Sepulveda,  the  soul  of  this  movement, 
and  Lieut. -Colonel  Cabreira,  was  read  to  the 
regiments  there  stationed,  and  a  *' Junta"  was 
forthwith  appointed  and  charged  with  the  govern- 
ment of  the  country  till  the  meeting  of  the  Cortes. 
Three  weeks  later,  Lisbon  seconded  the  movement. 


120      Porttigaese  Monarchy 

In  less  than  twenty  days  the  troops  and  people 
of  three  provinces  of  the  North  and  even  part  of 
Extremadura  had  adhered  to  the  movement  of 
Oporto. 

The  energetic  efforts  of  the  Portuguese  to 
regain  their  Constitutional  rights  were  such  that 
the  Regency,  governing  the  country  in  the  absence 
of  the  King,  that  had,  on  the  29th  August,  con- 
demned the  Oporto  movement,  stigmatising  those 
who  took  part  in  it  with  the  name  of  "rebels," 
reminding  the  insurgents  that  *'the  King  alone 
could  convoke  the  Cortes,"  was,  on  the  ist 
September,  issuing  a  proclamation  to  the  effect 
that  the  Regency  **  had  resolved,  in  the  name  of 
the  King  our  Lord,  to  convoke  the  Cortes,  ap- 
pointing immediately  a  committee  for  the  purpose 
of  proceeding  with  the  arrangements  necessary 
for  the  prompt  assembling  of  the  same."  The 
Regency,  however,  ceased  to  exist,  and  a  com- 
plete change  was  prepared  in  the  Portuguese 
Constitution,  the  Spanish  Constitution  of  181 2 
being  provisionally  adopted — a  Constitution  bad 
in  itself,  and  worse  by  the  reason  of  its  incom- 
patibility with  the  character  of  the  nation,  which 
a  better  experience  would  have  probably  rejected. 
The  fact  deserves  mention,  however,  that  the 
Portuguese,    when   they   insisted    on   the   repre- 


A  Nation's  Distress        121 

sentative  rights  of  the  nation,  professed  loyalty 
to  the  King  and  the  Portuguese  monarchy. 

Of  this  revolution  we  may  therefore  say  what 
Lord  Erskine  said  of  the  first  English  revolution — 
**  Monarchy  was  only  suspended,  not  abolished." 


VI 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  CONSTITUTIONAL 
LIBERTY 

THROUGH  all  this  feverish  history  there 
begins  in  Portugal  a  period  in  politics 
of  unusual  interest  and  complexity.  *'  Every 
change,"  says  Machiavelli,  'Mays  the  foundation 
of  another,"  and  this  observation  is  profound. 

John  VI,  who,  at  the  time  of  the  French  invasion 
of  the  Peninsula,  had  passed  over  with  his  Court 
to  Brazil,  had  now,  after  nominating  his  eldest 
son,  Dom  Pedro,  Regent  of  Brazil,  and  having 
appointed  the  Conde  dos  Arcos  his  son's  Prime 
Minister,  returned  to  Portugal.  He  arrived  on 
the  3rd  July  182 1.  The  very  next  day  he  had 
solemnly  sworn  before  the  Cortes  "to  observe 
and  cause  to  be  observed  the  basis  of  the  Con- 
stitution decreed  by  the  general,  extraordinary, 
and  constituent  Cortes  of  the  Portuguese  nation, 
and  the  Constitution  which  they  shall  make." 
Soon  after,  the  Cortes  had  obtained  his  sanction 
to  a  law  for  the  protection  of  the  liberty  of  the 


The  Struggle  lor  Liberty    123 

press  and  the  prevention  of  the  abuses  of  the 
press. 

Meantime,  Brazil  had  refused  to  acknowledge 
the  sovereignty  of  the  mother  country.  Long 
before  that,  the  Conde  dos  Arcos,  removed  by 
the  Brazilians  from  his  post,  had  arrived  as  a 
prisoner  in  Europe.  The  reason  of  all  this  was 
evident  enough.  John  vi,  when  he  had  sought 
refuge  in  that  Portuguese  dependency,  had,  on 
the  death  of  his  mother,  issued  a  decree  declaring 
Brazil  an  integral  part  of  the  kingdom,  and  raising 
the  ''  State  of  Brazil "  to  the  dignity,  pre-eminence, 
and  title  of  a  kingdom.  Embassies  had  been  re- 
ceived, and  that  ancient  Portuguese  colony  had 
been,  by  a  royal  decree,  admitted  into  diplomatic 
relationship.  Her  ports,  which  once  the  Portu- 
guese, to  push  their  monopoly,  had  closed  against 
other  nations,  had,  by  a  decree  of  John  vi,  been 
opened  to  the  commerce  of  the  world.  The 
printing-press  had  been  introduced,  learning  en- 
couraged, and  foreign  settlers  welcomed  to  the 
shores. 

It  was  of  course  to  be  expected  that  the 
Portuguese  would  admit  the  Brazilians  to  a 
direct  share  in  the  legislature  without  altogether 
destroying  the  character  of  the  Cortes.  Such  a 
duty  was  all  the  more  incumbent  on  the  Cortes 


124      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

because  the  establishment  of  the  Portuguese  Court 
in  Rio  de  Janeiro  during  the  first  twenty  years 
of  the  nineteenth  century  had  destroyed  the  old 
colonial  system.  But  the  Portuguese  began,  on 
the  return  of  their  King,  to  regard  the  Brazilians 
with  jealousy  and  distrust.  They  thought  they 
could  afford  to  despise  the  Brazilian  aspirations. 
Instead  of  drawing  closer  together  the  ties  which 
kindred  and  common  interest  might  have  formed 
between  the  two  nations,  their  presumption  and 
incapability  limited  their  horizon  to  their  immediate 
and  individual  interests.  They  still  thought  that 
the  true  vocation  of  Brazil  was  to  be  a  refuge  for 
the  Portuguese  outcasts  and  adventurers  who,  in 
ancient  days,  had  flocked  there  in  search  of  a 
living  and  committed  all  those  crimes  and  out- 
rages so  boldly  denounced  by  the  great  Father 
Antonio  Vieyra ;  and  with  the  savage  purpose  of 
bringing  back  Brazil  to  its  former  state  of  absolute 
dependence,  and  keeping  the  country  under  the 
oppressive  monopoly  under  which  it  had  remained 
so  long,  an  insulting  decree  was  passed  in  the 
Cortes,  ordering  the  Prince  Dom  Pedro  to  come 
to  Europe,  and  abolishing  the  Royal  Tribunals 
at  Rio  de  Janeiro.  A  decree  by  which  **  Brazil 
should  be  divided  into  provincial  governments 
subordinate  to  the  Government   at    Lisbon,  the 


The  Straggle  for  Liberty    125 

superior  tribunals  to  be  suppressed,  and  the 
Prince  Regent  to  return  to  Lisbon,  and  thence 
be  sent  to  France  and  England  accompanied  by 
such  attendants  as  the  Cortes  might  appoint  for 
him."  Naturally  enough,  this  disregard  of  the 
feelings  of  the  Brazilians  accelerated  the  separa- 
tist tendencies  of  Brazil.  They  noted  and  felt 
this  insult,  and  saw  the  reins  of  power  passing 
into  the  hands  of  men  who  had  a  set  of  primary 
interests  which  were  peculiar  to  themselves,  and 
in  which  Brazil  was  not  concerned ;  and  to 
defend  their  own  interests  against  the  aggressive 
selfishness  of  the  mother  country  Brazil,  in  spite 
of  the  large  forces  sent  by  the  Portuguese  to 
Bahia,  declared  her  independence  in  1822,  in- 
vesting Dom  Pedro  with  the  title  of  Emperor  of 
Brazil ;  and  a  few  years  later  John  vi,  accepting 
the  offer  of  England,  had  to  settle  the  dispute 
through  the  agency  of  Sir  Charles  Stuart,  a 
British  Minister  who  was  sent  as  Portuguese 
Plenipotentiary  to  Rio  de  Janeiro  with  full 
power  to  sign  the  Treaty  of  Separation  and 
Independence. 

No  doubt  a  serious  blow  had  been  given  to 
the  prestige  of  Portugal.  The  whole  situation 
was  exceptional,  and  history  had  never  shown 
such   an    example.       By   this   movement,    which 


126      Portuguese  Monarchy 

secured  to  Brazil  the  sympathy  and  respect  of 
every  civilised  country,  the  Brazilians  destroyed  a 
system  of  wholesale  political  jobbery  without 
breaking  entirely  with  the  glorious  traditions  of 
their  country.  ''  Brazil  wishes  to  have  the  same 
king,  but  does  not  choose  to  have  masters  in 
the  deputies  of  the  Congress  of  Lisbon.  Brazil 
desires  her  independence,  strengthened  by  a  well- 
understood  union  with  Portugal — she  wishes,  in 
short,  that  they  should  form  two  great  families, 
governed  by  their  own  laws,  pursuing  their  own 
respective  interests,  obedient  to  the  same  chief." 
These  were  the  words  of  the  Brazilian  Manifesto 
published  twenty  days  before  the  separation  of 
Brazil  from  the  Crown  of  Portugal  was  announced. 
It  was  therefore  a  movement  exacting  from  the 
mother  country  the  performance  of  her  duties ; 
and,  if  anything  can  give  this  movement  its  true 
character,  it  was,  to  quote  a  Brazilian  writer, 
**the  descendant  of  a  long  line  of  European 
monarchs  who  inaugurated  the  movement  which 
severed  the  last  and  most  faithful  of  the  great 
divisions  of  South  America  from  Transatlantic 
rule." 

But  the  immediate  possibilities  of  drawing  the 
two  countries  together  were  also  at  an  end. 
All  initiative  on  the  part  of  the  new  Brazilian 


The  Straggle  for  Liberty    127 

Emperor  was  repressed  by  the  events  that  were 
taking  place  in   Portugal.     His  family  ties  had 
pleaded  in  favour  of  his  father,   and  to  expect 
Dom  Pedro  to  remain  indifferent  to  the  violent 
change  that  had  taken  place  in  Portugal  is  com- 
pletely  to    misunderstand    human    nature.       No 
king  had  ever  been  in  a  more  deplorable  con- 
dition   than    that    in    which    John    vi   was   now 
placed.       He   met   with   the   opposition    of    the 
Queen,  Dona  Carlota  Joaquina — who  had  refused 
to  swear  to  the  New  Constitution  on  the  ground 
that  **  she  would  not  take  an  oath,  that  she  had 
made  a  promise  never  to  swear  either  for  good 
or  evil  during  her  life  " — and  of  his  younger  son, 
Dom  Miguel,  who  were  opposed  to  Constitutional 
ideas.     All  around  him  there  had  been  signs  of 
a  violent  reaction.     Francisco  Silveira,  Count  of 
Amarantes,    had     raised     a     "  pronunciamento " 
against  the  Constitution  of  1822 — a  Constitution 
which,  to  quote  Rebello  da  Silva,  **  when  it  left 
the  hands  of  its  authors,   was  already  diseased 
with    political    consumption,    of    which    it    died 
suddenly  in  the  following  year."     John  vi,  accord- 
ingly,  had  declared  the   Constitution  abrogated, 
and   placed   his   confidence   on  Count   Palmella, 
a  great  politician  who  had  been  Plenipotentiary 
to    the    Congress    of  Verona,    bidding    him    to 


128      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

draw  up  a  Constitution  on  the  British  model, 
which  the  King  had  been  longing  to  grant 
in  spite  of  the  numerous  obstacles  put  in  the 
way  by  the  Court  of  Madrid  and  the  French 
Cabinet. 

The  Absolutist  party,  however,  would  hear  of 
no  Constitutional  monarchy,  and  the  violence 
of  their  movement  exceeded  all  limits.  Dom 
Miguel,  quite  as  little  restrained  by  law  as  by 
honour,  revolted  against  his  own  father.  Placing 
himself  at  the  head  of  all  the  troops  of  the 
capital,  he  surrounded  the  Royal  Palace.  The 
Marquis  de  Loul6,  the  Kings  greatest  friend, 
who  held  liberal  opinions,  was  assassinated  shortly 
before  the  conspiracy  broke  out.  Palmella  was 
imprisoned  in  the  Tower  of  Belem,  and  such  was 
the  danger  of  the  King's  position  that  John  vi 
was  an  exile  in  his  dominions.  The  King  of 
Portugal  had  to  take  refuge  on  board  the 
Windsor  Castle,  a  British  man-of-war  in  the 
Tagus,  where  he  established  for  a  time  his  seat 
of  government.  From  there  the  King  had  to 
address  a  proclamation  to  the  nation  condemning 
the  acts  of  his  son,  Dom  Miguel,  who,  ''drawn 
aside  by  sinister  aspirations  and  deceived  by 
perfidious  counsels,  had  committed  acts  which,  if 
just  and  necessary,  should  have  emanated  from 


The  Struggle  for  Liberty    129 

my  sovereign  authority  alone,"  ^  and  dismiss- 
ing the  Infante  Dom  Miguel  from  the  command- 
in-chief  of  the  army  with  which  he  had  been 
invested.  But  the  period  of  violence  soon 
passed  away.  The  diplomatic  body,  especially 
the  French  Ambassador,  M.  Hyde  de  Neuville, 
had  exerted  its  influence  in  favour  of  the  King — 
an  interference  that  the  King  gratefully  acknow- 
ledged by  conferring  the  titles  of  Count  of 
Bemposta  on  Baron  Hyde  de  Neuville  and  the 
title  of  Count  of  Cacilhas  and  a  domain  of  the 
Crown  for  three  generations  on  Sir  Edward 
Thornton,  the  British  Minister  in  Lisbon. 

The  revolt  was  sternly  suppressed,  and  the 
rowdy  youth,  who,  after  the  historical  interview 
on  board  the  Windsor  Castle^  had,  in  a  letter 
to  his  father,  acknowledged  that  *'he  had  been 
led  to  commit  all  errors  by  the  want  of  ex- 
perience and  reflection  natural  to  youth,"  was 
banished  from  the  kingdom — but  banished  only 
to  prepare  himself,  under  the  Machiavellian 
Metternich,  for  further  attempts  to  check  all 
Constitutional  development  in  Portugal. 

John  VI  died  on  the  loth  March   1826,  and  by 

1  Vide  "  Proclamation  of  the  King  of  Portugal  to  the  Nation," 
given  on  board  the  English  ship,  Windsor  Castle^  in  the  roadstead 
of  the  Tagus,  9th  May  1824. 
9 


130      Portagtiese  Monarchy 

the  Royal  Decree  of  the  6th  March  of  that  same 
year,  his  daughter,  Infanta  Dona  Isabel  Maria, 
was  appointed  Regent,  with  assistance  of  a 
Council,  till  *'  the  legitimate  heir  and  successor  to 
the  Crown  should  make  other  provisions  in  this 
respect."  ^  Dom  Pedro,  the  Emperor  of  Brazil, 
who  was  the  first-born  of  John  vi,  and  therefore 
the  lawful  heir  to  the  throne,  had  thus  been 
called  to  decide  on  the  succession  to  the  Crown 
of  Portugal.  History  had  once  more  repeated 
itself.  In  the  days  gone  by.  King  Affonso  iii, 
whilst  a  Sovereign  Count  over  the  States  of 
Boulogne  in  France,  had  also  been  King  of 
Portugal  on  the  deposition  of  King  Sancho  ii. 
King  Affonso  v,  when  proclaimed  King  of 
Castille  and  Leon,  had  not  forfeited  his  rights  in 
his  own  country.  King  Manuel,  when  married 
to  the  Princess  Isabel,  had  governed  the  kingdoms 
of  Castille,  Leon,  and  Aragon  without  losing  his 
inviolable  rights  to  the  Portuguese  Crown  ;  and 
now  Dom  Pedro,  who  had  accepted  the  title  of 
Emperor  of  Brazil,  had,  on  the  death  of  his 
father,  to  abdicate  the  Crown  of  Portugal  in 
favour  of  his  eldest  daughter,  Dona  Maria  de 
Gloria.  **  It  being  incompatible  with  the  interests 
of  the  empire  of  Brazil  and  with  those  of  the 
^  Vide  Gazeta  de  Lisboa^  7  de  Margo  1826. 


The  Straggle  for  Liberty    i3i 

kingdom  of  Portugal  that  I  should  continue  to 
be  King  of  Portugal  and  the  Algarves  and  their 
dominions,"  to  quote  the  words  of  Dom  Pedro 
in  the  Act  of  Abdication  given  at  the  Palace  at 
Rio  de  Janeiro  on  the  2nd  May  1826,  the 
Emperor  of  Brazil  had  abdicated  in  favour  of 
his  daughter,  a  child  of  seven  years,  and  accom- 
panied the  abdication  with  the  grant  of  a  free 
Constitutional  Charter. 

But  a  great  and  sudden  turn  In  affairs  was  at 
hand.  The  Charter  granted  by  Dom  Pedro  had 
been  recognised  by  all  foreign  powers,  with  the 
exception  of  Spain,  as  proceeding  from  a 
legitimate  authority.  Spain,  In  her  endeavour  to 
destroy  the  Charter  that  she  thought  dangerous 
to  the  interests  of  her  own  internal  politics,  dis- 
played a  rancorous  and  incurable  hostility.  She 
had  sheltered  all  the  Portuguese  rebels  that, 
under  the  command  of  Brigadier  -  General 
Magessi,  and  later  under  Brigadier  -  General 
Montealegre,  fled  Into  her  territories.  When 
Portugal,  on  the  defection  of  her  Minister,  Gomes, 
who  had  refused  to  take  oath  to  the  Charter 
and  joined  the  rebels,  was  left  without  a  repre- 
sentative at  the  Court  of  Madrid,  the  Portuguese 
Government  had  despatched  the  Marquis  of 
Villa    Real   as    Plenipotentiary   to    Madrid,    but 


132      Portagtaese  Monarchy 

the  Spanish  Government  had  refused  to  acknow- 
ledge his  official  character.  The  real  crisis, 
however,  was  yet  to  come ;  and  it  came  with 
the  decree  of  3rd  of  July  1827,  signed  by  Dom 
Pedro,  appointing  Dom  Miguel  Regent  that  "he 
might  govern  the  country  conformably  with  the 
Charter."  The  Emperor  of  Brazil  had  already, 
when  he  granted  the  Charter,  made  it  a  condition 
that  his  daughter  should  marry  her  penitent 
uncle,  Dom  Miguel,  who  was  to  swear  that  he 
would  observe  the  Constitution.  Dom  Pedro 
was,  of  course,  desirous  of  making  it  believed 
that  everything  emanated  from  himself,  and  the 
decree  appointing  his  brother  Regent  of  Portugal 
was  one  of  the  many  instances  which  rendered 
the  Ministers  in  Portugal  less  self-confident.  He 
had  yielded  to  the  influences  of  Baron  Neuman, 
who  had  been  sent  from  Vienna  to  Rio  de 
Janeiro,  but  the  Emperor's  intentions  may  have 
been  innocent. 

Dom  Pedro  perhaps  hoped  to  reconcile  the 
factions  which  divided  Portugal.  But  the  effects 
of  that  measure  were  most  pernicious.  When  he 
signed  that  decree,  little  could  he  have  suspected 
that  he  was  plunging  the  country  into  revolution 
and  anarchy.  Dom  Miguel,  who  had  identified 
himself  with  the  party  which  had  the  Marquis  de 


The  Struggle  for  Liberty    133 

Chaves  for  its  leader,  who  was  soon  to  return 
from  Spain,  where  he  had  fled — a  party  which 
was  opposed  to  liberty  in  Portugal  and  the  inde- 
pendence of  Brazil — was  by  nature  averse  to  all 
Constitutional  government.  Ambitious  of  the 
throne,  he  directed  all  his  efforts  to  secure  that 
end.  A  tool  in  the  hands  of  his  mother,  Dona 
Carlota  Joaquina,  who  had  carried  on  her 
intrigues  in  the  secrecy  of  the  Palace  of  Queluz, 
no  sooner  was  he  made  Regent  than  he  dismissed 
his  Constitutional  Ministers  and,  at  a  time  when 
a  new  and  different  fundamental  law  ruled  the 
monarchy,  summoned  the  old  Cortes  which  were 
presided  over  by  the  Bishop  of  Vizeu,  who  un- 
scrupulously offered  Dom  Miguel  the  throne  of 
Portugal ;  and  Dom  Miguel,  who  had  waived  all 
his  claims  by  accepting  the  throne  in  the  right  of 
his  niece,  assumed,  on  the  nth  July  of  the  year 
1828,  the  title  of  King  of  Portugal.  He  who  was 
**  determined  to  maintain  Inviolate  the  laws  of  the 
kingdom  and  the  institutions  legally  granted  by 
our  august  brother,  and  which  we  have  all  sworn 
to  observe  and  cause  to  be  observed,"  and  fulfil 
all  that  his  brother  expected  of  him  in  appointing 
him  "  his  lieutenant  and  Regent  In  these  kingdoms 
— to  govern  them  according  to  what  Is  prescribed 
in  the  Constitutional  Charter  " — to  quote  his  words 


134      Portuguese  Monarchy 

of  declaration  made  through  the  letter  he  wrote 
from  Vienna  to  his  sister,  had  now  usurped  the 
throne  of  Portugal !  The  story  of  his  career 
cannot,  therefore,  be  made  more  shameful  than 
truth  itself  displays  it. 

Once  Dom  Miguel  fancied  himself  King,  he 
immediately  exiled  the  whole  Constitutional  Party. 
He  thought  it  necessary  for  his  own  safety  to 
drive  away  Palmella,  Saldanha,  Sampaio,  and 
Villa  Flor,  and  compel  them  to  take  refuge  in 
England.  He  cast  4000  persons  into  the 
dungeons  of  the  Limoeiro,  S.  Juliao,  and  Belem 
for  political  offences,  and  sequestrated  their  goods 
and  possessions.  Most  of  these  victims  had 
taken  part  in  the  Oporto  insurrection,  when  Dom 
Pedro  and  the  Charter  were  proclaimed  by  the 
garrisons  of  Oporto,  which,  with  other  garrisons, 
had  marched  against  Oporto.  When  defeated 
some  had  taken  refuge  in  Spain,  and  others 
embarked  for  Great  Britain.  Those  of  them 
who  were  left  behind  were  now  suffering  at  the 
hands  of  Telles  Jordao  and  Bastos,  the  instru- 
ments of  Dom  Miguel's  tyranny. 

Acting  in  contradiction  to  his  promises  made 
in  Vienna  and  London,  where  he  had  been  before 
assuming  the  Regency,  Dom  Miguel  had  usurped 
the  throne  of  Portugal.     But  his  supporters,  as  if 


The  Struggle  for  Liberty    i35 

to  clear  him  from  the  imputation  of  dishonesty, 
had  taken  a  **  national  vote"  urging  Dom  Miguel 
to  ascend  the  throne — the  most  infamous  docu- 
ment that  ever  was  drawn  up  to  delude  European 
nations.  His  partisans  sank  so  low  as  to  take 
even  harlots  to  sign  the  lists  kept  in  the  Muni- 
cipal Chamber  of  Lisbon  !  They  thought  as  long 
as  they  could  command  a  great  number  of  signa- 
tures, Dom  Miguel's  honour  was  unassailable. 

The  spirit  of  absolutism  was  uppermost,  and 
was  already  exhibiting  both  its  strength  and  its 
weakness.  The  Duke  of  Lafoes  had  invited 
the  Portuguese  nobility  to  support  this  nefarious 
usurpation,  and  some  of  the  most  noble  families 
of  the  kingdom  had  answered  to  his  appeal. 
But  the  nation  was  not  going  to  accept,  with 
something  of  the  resignation  of  the  Moslem,  the 
despotic  rule  of  Dom  Miguel  de  Bragan^a.  His 
despotism  was  such  that  by  a  decree  he  had 
altered  all  the  sentences  of  banishment  for 
political  crimes  into  death.  The  persecutions 
carried  on  by  means  of  his  special  commissions 
will  never  absolve  him  from  the  ignominy  which 
will  remain  attached  to  his  name.  Through  his 
tyranny  the  Chartist  and  Radical  Parties,  who 
respectively  supported  the  Charter  of  1826  and 
the  Constitution  of  1822,  had  almost  sunk  their 


136      Portagtiese  Monarchy 

differences  to  oppose  him.  This  prince  had 
thrown  the  country  into  such  a  confusion  that 
the  English  Minister,  Lamb,  who  had  been  sent 
to  substitute  A  court,  had  refused  payment  of  the 
loan  of  ;^5o,ooo  made  to  Dom  Miguel  in  London 
under  the  guarantee  of  the  English  Government, 
because  the  English  Minister  feared  its  insecurity. 

Dom  Miguel  was  indeed  responsible  for  a 
situation  that  fully  justified  the  w^ords  of  an  hon. 
member  of  the  House  of  Commons  who,  on  the 
loth  March  1830,  referring  to  the  affairs  of 
Portugal,  said  :  *'  He  looked  with  astonishment 
at  the  character  of  D.  Miguel.  It  was  astonishing 
that  so  young  a  man  could  have  accomplished  so 
much  wickedness  in  so  short  a  time  ;  for  at  the 
early  age  of  six-and- twenty  this  man,  this  D. 
Miguel,  had  perpetrated  every  crime  and  dis- 
played every  vice  which  historical  truth  or 
historical  fiction  had  attributed  to  the  most 
sanguinary  monsters  that  ever  w^aded  through 
the  blood  of  innocent  people  in  the  pursuit  of 
their  ambitious  objects.  (Hear,  hear.)  It  was  to 
be  hoped  that  he  would  finish  a  life  of  infamy  by 
a  death  of  violence." 

The  atrocities  of  Dom  Miguel  and  the  fanaticism 
of  the  Absolutist  movement,  however,  aggravated 
the  struggle  for  Constitutional  liberty.    It  produced 


The  Struggle  for  Liberty    i37 

an  effervescence  in  the  people  which  culminated  in 
the  civil  wars  between  the  subjects  of  Queen  Dona 
Maria  ii  and  the  partisans  of  her  uncle,  Dom 
Miguel — wars  that  shed  in  torrents  the  blood  of 
the  nation  and  inoculated  Portuguese  society  with 
germs  of  strife  and  discord. 

But  if  the  passions  of  the  combatants  in  those 
struggles  for  liberty  were  fierce,  the  issues  at  stake 
were  not  less  momentous. 

A  Constitution  which  was  sent  to  Portugal  from 
Brazil  with  its  merits  alone  to  support  it  was 
bound  to  produce  those  great  civil  wars. 

The  Portuguese  Liberals,  most  of  them  in- 
fluenced by  the  doctrines  proclaimed  by  the 
French  Revolution  of  1789,  dealt,  not  with  con- 
crete realities,  but  with  abstract  theories  of  parlia- 
mentary government.  This  had  the  widest  and 
the  most  mischievous  operation.  It  had  caused 
unintentionally  confused  notions  about  Constitu- 
tional liberty  in  the  popular  mind,  with  the  result 
that  it  multiplied  rapidly  in  number  and  power 
Dom  Miguel's  supporters  belonging  to  the 
nobility  and  the  higher  clergy. 

There  was  yet  another  ground  of  uneasiness 
which  must  needs  have  confronted  those  who 
were  fighting  for  the  Constitutional  cause.  The 
Portuguese    Liberals    had    met   with   a   decided 


138      Portttgtiese  Monarchy 

foreign  opposition  to  their  cause,  and  to  their 
great  misfortune  Canning,  the  great  champion  of 
Hberty,  was  dead,  and  his  policy  of  keeping 
England  aloof  from  the  machinations  of  those 
who  were  interested  in  the  so-called  Holy 
Alliance  had  not  been  followed  by  his  successor. 
The  Duke  of  Wellington  had  been  in  power 
after  Canning's  death,  Lord  Dudley  had  been 
substituted  by  Lord  Aberdeen,  and  the  British 
Cabinet  had  disappointed  the  Portuguese  Con- 
stitutionists  by  protecting  the  claims  of  the 
Portuguese  usurper. 

Dom  Pedro's  arrival  from  Brazil,  therefore, 
occupied  the  attention  of  the  nation  to  the 
exclusion  of  everything  else.  The  personal 
prestige  of  the  giver  of  the  Constitution,  though 
it  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  ultimate  dis- 
posal of  things,  acted  nevertheless  powerfully 
to  strengthen  the  cause  of  the  Constitution  in 
Portugal.  When  informed  of  his  brother's  doings 
in  Portugal,  Dom  Pedro  had  issued  from  Rio  de 
Janeiro  a  proclamation,  dated  the  25th  July  1828, 
urging  the  Portuguese  to  stand  by  their  Constitu- 
tional rights,  and  water,  if  necessary,  the  tree  of 
liberty  with  their  blood.  That  proclamation  had 
animated  the  Portuguese  Constitutionalists.  He 
left    Brazil   in   July    1832,  and   arrived  with   an 


The  Struggle  for  Liberty    139 

army  of  7500  men  at  Oporto  to  uphold  the 
rights  of  his  daughter  against  his  brother,  who 
had  usurped  the  throne. 

The  island  of  Terceira,  where,  in  March  1830, 
a  Regency  consisting  of  Palmella,  Villa  Flor,  and 
Guerreiro  had  been  installed,  had  remained  loyal 
to  Dom  Pedro's  daughter.  It  was  from  there 
that  the  operations  were  directed  against  Dom 
Miguel  and  his  supporters.  Thus  the  memor- 
able siege  of  Oporto  was  followed  by  the  Duke 
de  Saldanha's  victory  over  General  Bourmont, 
who  was  engaged  by  Dom  Miguel  to  command 
his  forces. 

Saldanha  defeated  Dom  Miguel's  partisans  at 
Torres  Novas  and  Alamoster,  Napier  and  Sa  de 
Bandeira  reduced  the  provinces  of  Beira  and 
Alemtejo  respectively,  and  Dom  Miguel  was 
finally  compelled  to  sign  the  Convention  of  Evora 
Monte,  by  which  he  was  given  a  pension  of 
;^  1 5,000  a  year  on  condition  of  leaving  Portugal 
for  ever ;  and  the  Cortes,  in  the  name  of  the 
nation,  had  to  ''declare  him  and  his  heirs  inelig- 
ible to  the  throne  and  forbid  him  to  return  to 
Portugal  under  penalty  of  death." 

Thus  came  to  an  end  the  six  years  of  Dom 
Miguel's  usurpation,  which  fomented  bitter  and 
sanguinary  animosities,  and  which    plunged    the 


140      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

nation  in  despair — a  usurpation  against  which,  in 
England,  Mackintosh  and  Viscount  Palmerston, 
the  leaders  of  the  Liberal  Party,  and,  in  France, 
Benjamin  Constant  Lafayette  and  Lamarque 
raised  in  their  Parliaments  a  voice  of  protest. 
It  was  so  atrocious  that  it  even  called  forth  the 
following  lines  from  Victor  Hugo  in  his  Leaves  of 
Autumn : — 

"  Quand  Lisbonne  jadis  belle  et  toujours  en  fete 
Pend  au  gibet,  les  pieds  de  Miguel  sur  sa  t6te." 

Yet  the  whole  responsibility  for  this  abnormal 
state  of  affairs  does  not  rest  with  Dom  Miguel 
alone.  It  has  to  be  shared  by  King  Ferdinand  vii 
of  Spain,  who,  following  blindly  the  advice  of 
Calomarde,  his  Minister,  and  fearing  the 
Portuguese  Liberal  movement  might  influence 
his  own  subjects,  had  worked  with  other  ac- 
complices in  Prince  Metternich's  machinations 
for  the  destruction  of  the  Portuguese  Consti- 
tutional Charter,  which  was  the  **  apple  of  discord 
in  the  concert  of  the  soi-disant  Holy  Alliance."  ^ 

^  Vide  Gervinus,  Geschichte  dcs  neunz :  Jahrh  : 


VII 

ILLUSIVE  HOPES 

ONCE  the  period  of  violence  had  passed  away, 
it  was  only  natural  that  it  should  be 
attended  by  mighty  results.  Portugal  had  been 
endowed  by  a  Charter  which  had  drawn  into  its 
life  the  most  stimulating  influences  of  the  doctrine 
of  Bentham  with  such  wide  diffusion  of  political 
rights,  coupled  with  every  guarantee  for  personal 
liberty,  that  any  Liberal  would  have  hailed  it  as  the 
practical  realisation  of  Montesquieu's  political 
ideals.  But  political  welfare  cannot  be  decreed  or 
effected  by  the  grant  of  a  Charter.  The  value  of 
a  Constitution  lies  in  its  having  its  foundation 
in  the  strong  moral  and  political  convictions  of 
a  free  people,  and  whenever  that  ceases  to  be 
the  fact,  the  Constitution  cannot  but  be  blank 
parchment. 

The  Portuguese  Liberals,  however,  proved 
themselves  incapable  of  exercising  a  mighty  and 
decisive  influence  in  the  politics  of  the  country. 

Liberalism  was  seen  to  be  in  their  case  the  mere 

X41 


142      Portagtiese  Monarchy 

right  of  the  dominant  element  to  crush  all  those 
who  could  not  be  conciliated. 

No  sooner  were  the  great  wars  over  than  some 
of  the  Portuguese  demagogues,  lacking  the  spirit 
of  tolerance  which  ought  to  animate  all  men  in  a 
Constitutional  country,  supposed  it  a  necessary- 
security  for  their  political  liberties  that  Dom  Pedro 
should  have  his  brother,  Dom  Miguel,  executed; 
and  for  refusing  to  be  a  party  to  this,  these  so- 
called  Liberals  fiercely  assailed  the  giver  of  the 
Constitution  with  weapons  which  they  of  all  people 
should  have  been  the  last  to  use. 

Dom  Pedro  died  at  the  Palace  of  Queluz  six 
days  after  the  Queen  was  declared  of  age. 

In  the  reign  of  Dona  Maria  ii,  who  was  only 
fifteen  when  she  ascended  the  throne,  the 
Portuguese  carried  on  their  party  struggles  with 
such  violence  that  they  disturbed  all  sources  of 
domestic  tranquillity.  The  history  of  the  twenty 
years  of  that  reign  is  the  history  of  party  wrang- 
lings  and  a  flagrant  example  of  the  inadequacy  of 
a  Constitutional  system  to  answer  all  the  demands 
of  the  Portuguese  demagogues.  The  political 
character  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Maria  ii  was, 
in  short,  determined  by  the  fact  that  the  majority 
of  the  Portuguese  had  no  opinions  of  their  own  but 
merely  echoed  opinions,  and  were  the  natural  prey 


Illusive  Hopes  143 

of  the  Portuguese  demagogues,  who,  In  their  turn, 
had  vague  ideas  of  political  liberty  and  lacked 
experience. 

During  that  period  Portugal  passed  through 
one  of  the  most  trying  crises  of  her  history,  which 
has  influenced  her  political  development  to  the 
present  time.  Since  the  famous  emigration  of 
1828-32,  when,  on  the  3rd  July  1828,  out  of 
12,000  exiles  that  left  Oporto  2868  embarked  at 
Corunna  and  Ferrol  on  their  way  to  England,  the 
great  Constitutional  Party  had  split  into  two  groups. 
These  had  degenerated  into  mere  factions,  and 
the  groups  had  ceased  to  represent  any  principles. 
When  the  great  Constitutional  struggle  was  over, 
the  two  groups  were  led,  one  by  the  Marquis  de 
Palmella,  and  the  other  by  the  Duke  de  Saldanha, 
the  latter  being  then  in  the  opposition.  In  1834 
we  find  these  two  groups  engaged  in  the  great 
electioneering  campaign,  which  was  full  of  faction 
and  passion  ;  and  the  competing  parties,  careless 
of  honesty  or  justification  of  the  means,  directed 
all  their  energies  to  attain  power. 

The  throne  being  without  an  heir,  the  Queen 
consented^  to  marry.  She  married,  in  January 
1835,  the  Duke  of  Leuchtenberg,  second  son  of 
Eugene  de  Beauharnals  by  Princess  Augusta  of 
Bavaria,  who,  to  her  misfortune,  died  within  two 


144      Portttgtiese  Monarchy 

months.  Pressed  by  the  nation,  she  married,  a  year 
after,  Prince  Ferdinand  of  Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. 
But  the  nomination  of  Prince  Ferdinand  to  the 
post  of  Commander-in-Chief  was  the  theme  of 
discussion  in  the  Parliament  that  had  already 
refused  the  chief  command  of  the  army  to  the 
Queen's  first  husband.  The  onslaught  made  by 
the  opposition  on  the  Government  and  the  Crown 
proved  strongly  that  the  exigencies  of  parlia- 
mentary life  in  those  days  needed  things  to  fight 
over,  not  things  to  do.  Almost  a  session  was 
wasted  in  fierce  controversies  over  that  question, 
when  so  many  important  problems  affecting  the 
future  of  the  country  were  pressing  for  immediate 
solution. 

Meantime,  the  politicians,  with  views  and 
passions  utterly  irreconcilable,  had  suffered  their 
prejudices  to  run  riot  with  their  judgment.  This 
rancorous  hostility  manifested  itself  in  the  long 
series  of  pronunciamentos  that  characterised  the 
first  period  of  democracy,  which  began  with 
the  famous  revolution  of  September  1836,  when 
Francisco  Soares  da  Caldeira,  encouraged  by  the 
military  insurrection  in  Spain  in  the  beginning  of 
August,  raised  in  Lisbon  the  cry  for  the  abolition 
of  the  Charter  and  the  re-establishment  of  the 
Constitution    of     1822     resembling     the    Cadiz 


Illusive  Hopes  145 

Constitution.  That  pronunciamento,  which  was 
followed  by  violent  struggles,  resulted  in  the 
temporary  adoption  of  the  New  Constitution  of 
1838,  which  was  no  other  but  that  of  1822.  And 
it  gave  rise  to  the  two  parties — parties  that  had  to 
play  an  important  part  in  the  history  of  the 
country  :  the  Setembristas ,  who,  having  drawn 
their  inspiration  from  the  theories  of  the  first 
French  Revolution,  were  extremely  democratic  in 
their  views,  and  supported  the  Liberal  Constitution 
of  1838  ;  and  the  Cartistas,  with  moderate  and 
Conservative  views,  who  insisted  upon  the  pre- 
rogatives of  a  sovereign,  an  hereditary  chamber, 
and  certain  property  qualifications  in  case  of 
Members  of  Parliament. 

But  the  motives  which  led  the  leaders  of  the 
revolution  of  September  **  were  not  the  merits  of 
either  of  the  two  Constitutions,"^  as  Count  of 
Taipa,  one  of  the  leaders  of  that  movement, 
declared  some  time  after  in  the  Cortes. 

The  Charter  had  been  abused  to  the  full  extent 
of  all  its  powers  by  the  ministry  in  power.  A 
spirit  of  faction  had  prevailed  in  every  act  of  the 
Government.  The  finances  were  tottering  on 
the  verge  of  bankruptcy.  The  Bank  of  Lisbon 
had   already   given    notice   that   they   would    no 

^  Vide  Lettre  addresse  au  Comte  Goblet  d*  Alviella^  p.  lo. 
10 


146      Porttcgtiese  Monarchy 

longer  receive  paper  money  at  eighty,  i.e.  at 
twenty  per  cent,  discount.  The  Minister  of  Finance 
had  been  at  a  loss  how  to  raise,  immediately, 
about  ;^2, 100,000  to  pay  the  dividends  on  the 
foreign  and  domestic  debt  to  the  30th  June  of 
that  year.  The  pay  of  the  Army  and  Navy,  as  well 
as  civilians  in  Government  service,  was  in  arrears. 
All  this  served  the  purposes  of  the  political 
agitators.  They  employed  all  means  to  inflame 
the  passions  of  the  mob,  and  thus  subverted  a 
political  oligarchy  whose  corrupt  and  oppressive 
system,  let  it  be  said,  was  not  in  any  way  com- 
patible with  the  genius  of  the  Charter. 

The  period  that  followed  the  revolution  of 
September  was  a  period  of  democracy,  but  of 
democracy  in  its  worst  form.  Its  symptoms 
manifested  themselves  in  a  general  disposition 
to  think  ill  of  all  the  actions  of  men  in  power, 
a  delight  for  heaping  dirt  upon  the  Queen  and 
her  supporters.  Her  name  was  dragged  into 
party  politics.  Insinuations,  the  most  odious  and 
repugnant  to  the  feelings  of  a  woman,  were  made 
about  her ;  ribald  songs  and  caricatures  were 
thrust  into  the  hands  of  the  masses,  the  public 
threshing  out  of  every  subject  to  its  last  shreds. 

This  political  insecurity,  which  retarded  all 
legislative  enterprise,  continued  for  some  years. 


Illttsive  Hopes  147 

In  1842,  however,  Costa  Cabral,  who,  three  years 
later,  was  created  Count  of  Thomar,  declared 
himself  for  the  Charter  of  1826,  and  he  was 
supported  by  the  Duke  of  Terceira,  who  Issued 
a  pronunciamento  in  Lisbon  in  favour  of  that 
Charter.  No  sooner  had  Costa  Cabral  attained 
power  than  he  set  his  face  resolutely  against 
empty  demagogism  and  disorder.  But,  in  his 
attempt  to  do  battle  against  the  danger  threaten- 
ing the  stability  of  the  monarchy,  he  miscalculated 
the  direction  of  public  opinion.  Hot  in  his  temper 
and  harsh  to  his  opponents,  in  his  efforts  to  muzzle 
the  demagogue  he  tampered  with  public  liberties. 
The  opposition  gained  by  it.  A  clamour  was 
raised  on  the  ground  that  Cabral  was  attempting 
to  smother  the  freedom  of  the  people  to  make 
the  Queen  absolute  ;  and  the  nation,  excited  to 
madness,  thinking  it  was  no  longer  a  contest 
between  the  competing  parties,  but  a  trial  of 
strength  between  the  throne  and  the  people, 
sternly  protested  against  Cabral's  administration. 
This  movement,  which  resulted  in  many  deeds 
of  violence,  was  followed  by  the  revolt  known  as 
the  war  of  Maria  da  Fonte,  or  *'  Patulea  " — a  name 
applied  to  the  rebels  as  signifying  an  armed  mob — 
a  movement  that  made  a  great  havoc  of  the 
lives   and   principles    of    many   individuals.      In 


148      Porttigttesc  Monarchy 

May  1846   Cabral  was   driven    from  power,  and 
he  fled  in  disguise  to  Spain. 

In  the  meantime  the  Septembrists  and  the 
Chartists,  in  the  heat  of  conflict,  thinking  only  of 
immediate  party  victories,  never  of  remote  issues, 
had  lost  sight  of  the  partisans  of  Dom  Miguel, 
who  were  dexterously  availing  themselves  of 
every  opportunity  to  make  capital  out  of  the 
situation  created  by  the  two  parties.  This  dis- 
tressing state  of  affairs  made  it  necessary,  in  1847, 
for  Saldanha  to  demand  of  England  and  Spain, 
in  conformity  with  the  terms  of  the  Quadruple 
Alliance,  an  armed  intervention  in  the  internal 
affairs  of  the  country.  Thus  a  remedy,  distasteful 
enough  In  happier  circumstances,  had  to  be  applied 
for  the  suppression  of  disorder.  On  the  29th 
June  1847,  ^he  Convention  of  Granldo  was  signed, 
and  Queen  Maria  11  maintained  Saldanha  in 
power.  But  Saldanha,  who,  when  entrusted  with 
the  government  was  a  Cartista,  changed  his 
political  opinions  and  turned  a  Setembrlsta.  It 
has  been  said  that  Saldanha  preferred  personal 
ambitions  to  old  ties  of  political  association  and 
to  his  own  avowed  political  opinions.  But  it  is 
difficult  to  ascertain  the  motives  of  such  a  man 
as  Saldanha  (for,  to  quote  Soriano,  "  were  It  not 
for  him  the  Charter  might   have   fallen   to  the 


c    c 
c    c' 


stve  H 


COSTA  CABRAL,  COUNT  OF  THOMAR,  PRIME  MINISTER 
(1839-1851) 


Illusive  Hopes  149 

ground  "),  and  to  tell  exactly  where  his  patriotism 
ended  and  personal  ambition  stepped  in. 

In  1849,  however,  Cabral  returned  to  active 
political  life,  and  succeeded  in  bringing  about 
Saldanha's  resignation  in  June  of  that  year. 
Cabral's  rise  naturally  caused  great  excitement 
throughout  the  country.  The  excitement  was 
such  that  a  British  Minister  in  Lisbon  went  so 
far  as  to  suggest  to  the  Queen  the  dismissal  of 
Cabral,  but  Queen  Maria  ii  did  not  yield  to  the 
influence  of  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour. 

But  Saldanha,  who  was  all  fire  and  hope,  gave 
the  sign  of  alarm  by  raising  a  revolutionary  move- 
ment at  Cintra  on  the  7th  April  185 1.  After 
organising  a  successful  complot  that  drove  Cabral, 
his  greatest  and  personal  foe,  from  power  in 
ignominy,  and  compelled  him  to  take  refuge  on 
board  an  English  vessel,  Saldanha  entered  Lisbon 
triumphantly  on  the  15th  May. 

At  this  time,  and  in  these  circumstances, 
Saldanha  proclaimed  himself  Commander-in-Chief 
of  the  Army  and  assumed  dictatorship,  which  led 
to  that  movement  of  *'  Regeneration,"  as  it  was 
named,  when  all  parties  sunk  differences  and 
rallied  enthusiastically  to  the  support  of  a  policy 
that  was  to  shape  the  future  of  the  Parliament 
which   had   been  an  evil  almost  organic  in  the 


150      Porttigtcese  Monarchy 

working  of  the  Constitution.  The  dictatorship 
afforded  Saldanha's  ministry  an  opportunity  of 
ending  a  financial  situation  that  could  subsist  no 
longer  and  of  promoting  the  welfare  of  the  people. 
Saldanha,  however,  was  fortunate  in  having  in 
his  ministry  a  man  like  Rodrigo  da  Fonseca 
Magalhaes,  who  threw  himself  with  all  his  energy 
into  that  movement  of  political  regeneration  in 
the  hope  of  advancing  the  Constitutional  cause. 
It  was  he  who  brought  about  the  change  that 
resulted  in  the  passing,  in  the  Cortes  specially 
assembled  for  that  purpose,  of  the  celebrated 
'*Acto  Addicional "  of  1852,  which  may  be  said 
to  have  marked  the  close  of  the  epoch  of  pro- 
nunciamentos — the  main  features  of  that  Act 
being  a  complete  change  in  the  electoral  system, 
substitution  of  the  indirect  voting  by  the  direct, 
international  treaties  to  be  submitted  to  the 
approval  of  Parliament,  creation  of  representative 
municipalities,  and  abolition  of  capital  punishment 
for  political  crimes.  Ever  since  that  Act  was 
passed,  the  Charter,  which  had  been  altered  by 
another  additional  Act  of  1885  and  by  the  laws 
of  1895,  ^^^  been  the  fundamental  law  of  the 
Portuguese  monarchy. 

Parliamentary  government   had   hardly  begun 
to  settle  down  in  Portugal  into  regular  working 


Illtisive  Hopes  isi 

order  when  Queen  Maria  ii  died  on  the  15th 
November  1853,  at  the  age  of  thirty-four,  having 
undergone  twenty  years  of  unparalleled  humilia- 
tions at  the  hands  of  her  politicians,  whose 
unchivalrous  treatment  must  have  sunk  deep  into 
the  heart  of  that  woman.  On  her  death  the 
King  Consort  assumed  the  Regency  until  his 
eldest  son,  Dom  Pedro  v,  came  of  age  and  was 
proclaimed  King  on  the  i6th  September  1855. 


VIII 

TURN  OF  THE  TIDE 

THE  events  which  marked  the  commence- 
ment of  Dom  Pedro  v's  reign  were  the 
most  distressing  of  modern  times.  Lisbon  had 
witnessed  the  ravages  of  the  cholera  morbus  and 
the  yellow  fever  in  the  very  heart  of  the  city.  In 
little  less  than  four  months  15,000  people  were 
attacked  and  5000  had  fallen  victims  to  it.  But 
the  historical  interest  of  these  sad  events  centres 
round  the  young  monarch,  on  whom  devolved  the 
duty  of  organising  the  work  to  relieve  the  suffer- 
ings of  a  miserable  and  desperate  people  dying 
of  plague.  To  Dom  Pedro  v  the  vocation  of  a 
king  must  have  been  full  of  meaning  as  he 
tramped  the  streets  of  Lisbon  to  visit  his  plague- 
stricken  subjects  and  render  them  every  assistance 
he  could. 

Very  few  Portuguese  sovereigns  had  shown 
a  deeper  love  for  their  subjects,  and  the  part  Dom 
Pedro  v  so  nobly  played  in  this  great  calamity 

endeared  him  to  the  nation. 

15a 


c       c    B    c       c    e       e 


'  c     c     t    c  ,*c    c       c 


n 


Tr 


DUKE   DE  SALDANHA 
(1791-1876) 


Tarn  of  the  Tide  153 

In  1857  the  King,  whose  popularity  was  now 
at  its  height,  married  Princess  Stephanie  of 
Hohenzollern  Sigmarigen.  But,  unhappily,  she 
died  the  next  year,  and  in  her  the  nation  mourned 
not  merely  a  queen  but  a  friend's  wife ;  and  how 
cruelly  the  King's  heart  was  torn  with  anguish 
may  be  imagined  from  the  words  he  wrote  in  the 
letter  acknowledging  the  sympathy  of  his  people 
in  his  bereavement. 

In  the  meantime  the  political  tranquillity  that, 
towards  the  beginning  of  his  reign,  had  in  a  great 
measure  been  restored  to  the  kingdom,  seemed  on 
the  point  of  disappearing.  Dom  Pedro  v  had 
observed  the  truce,  which  circumstances  seemed 
to  have  established,  by  maintaining  the  Duke  de 
Saldanha  in  power.  But  events  were  now  rapidly 
bringing  on  the  rupture  between  the  parties.  All 
hopes  of  inaugurating  a  happier  order  of  things 
had  perished.  A  financial  crisis  had  overthrown 
Saldanha's  government  in  1857,  and  the  Marquis 
de  Loul6,  who  had  once  played  an  important  part 
in  the  old  Septembrist  movement  and  was  now 
leading  a  new  party  called  ''Partido  Historico," 
assumed  premiership  of  the  new  ministry,  which 
lasted  till  1859.  In  Parliament  Lould's  ministry 
met  with  the  violent  opposition  of  the  Cartistas, 
who  wanted  to  triumph  by  the  success  with  which 


154      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

they  exposed  the  insincerity  of  Louie's  Ministers 
to  give  effect  to  the  legislative  reforms  they 
desired  to  accomplish.  Louie,  however,  tried  to 
weaken  the  opposition  by  forming  a  ministry  of 
coalition  and  offered  Avila,  who  was  a  Cartista, 
a  seat  in  the  Cabinet  as  Minister  of  Finance.  But 
Coalition  Cabinets,  it  was  said  by  somebody, 
'*  are  like  Nebuchadnezzar's  image  ;  they  are  com- 
posite in  their  character  and  liable  to  be  broken 
in  pieces  and  smashed  up  in  delightful  confusion." 
Such  was  the  fate  of  Loul6-Avila's  ministry,  which 
had  to  resign  in  May  1859. 

In  the  midst  of  the  political  restlessness  and 
discontent  of  the  times  there  also  arose  a  conflict 
with  the  Holy  See,  which  no  one  desired,  but 
which  afforded  an  important  warning  of  the 
dangers  to  which  the  prestige  of  the  nation  was 
exposed.  For  some  time  there  had  been  dis- 
putes between  the  Priests  of  the  Propaganda 
Fide  and  the  Portuguese  Missionaries  over  the 
rights  of  the  Portuguese  Patronage  in  the  East. 
The  extent  to  which  the  Priests  of  the  Propaganda 
Fide,  with  her  See  in  Rome,  had  carried  their 
encroachments,  had  compelled  the  Portuguese 
Missionaries  to  insist  on  the  inviolable  rights  that 
were  solemnly  granted  and  secured  to  Portugal 
in  virtue  of  the  Apostolic  Bulls  on  the  subject, 


Turn  of  the  Tide  155 

and  in  conformity  with  the  Holy  Canons  of  the 
Church. 

The  troubles  of  the  Patronage,  however,  were 
not  new.  They  began  on  the  day  Portugal  lost 
her  political  supremacy  in  the  East.  Till  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  the 
Portuguese  Patronage  in  Asia  extended  over 
Arabia  Felix,  Persia,  Afghanistan,  Cabul,  Thibet, 
Tartary  (central),  the  whole  of  India,  Ceylon, 
Maldive  Islands,  kingdoms  of  Nepal,  Assam, 
Burmese  Empire,  Pegu,  twelve  kingdoms  in  the 
Malay  Peninsula,  the  islands  of  Sumatra,  Sunda, 
Batavia,  the  Molucca  Islands,  the  Chinese  Empire, 
Eastern  Tartary,  the  kingdoms  of  Corea  and 
Japan ;  and  the  history  of  Catholicism  in  the 
East  fully  justified  Portugal's  claim  to  those  rights 
acquired  by  the  legitimate  titles  of  foundation 
and  obtained  at  the  cost  of  the  blood  of  her 
martyrs.  But  the  Curia  Romana  had  everything 
her  own  way  for  a  long  time.  During  the 
Spanish  domination,  Philip  iv  of  Castille  had 
vainly  pressed  the  Holy  See  to  create  new 
bishoprics  in  Japan  and  China.  The  next 
occasion  of  dissent  had  been  the  revolution  of 
1820,  when  the  prejudices  of  the  Castillian 
monarch  were  to  be  attended  to,  and  Rome,  to 
maintain  good  relations  with  Spain,  was  severing 


156      Portagtiese  Monarchy 

her  diplomatic  ties  with  Portugal,  the  Curia 
having  meantime  appointed  apostolic  vicars  for 
Tonkin,  Cochin  China,  and  China. 

As  time  went  on,  the  Portuguese  diplomatic 
relations  with  Rome  ceased,  however,  to  be 
unfriendly,  but  there  existed  difficulties  which  time 
and  patience  alone  could  remove.  The  Holy 
See  had,  for  instance,  attempted  to  restrict  the 
authority  of  the  Archbishop  of  Goa  in  Portuguese 
India  by  forbidding  him  to  exercise  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction  over  the  apostolic  vicars  appointed  by 
the  Pope.  It  encountered  a  strenuous  opposition 
in  its  endeavour  to  enforce  that  condition,  offensive 
to  the  rights  of  Patronage,  and  Pope  Alexander 
VII  had  to  create,  in  China,  bishoprics  at  Pekin 
and  Nankin,  and  to  grant  to  Portugal  the  right 
of  Patronage  over  these  dioceses. 

New  events,  however,  led  up  to  new  disputes. 
An  apostolic  brief,  **  Ex  munere  pastorali  "  of  the 
23rd  December  1836,  had  separated  the  island  of 
Ceylon  from  the  Patronage,  and  the  Bull,  **  Multa 
praeclare,"  of  the  21st  April  1838,  had  abolished 
the  right  of  Patronage  outside  Portuguese 
dominions.  The  conflict  then,  as  was  only 
natural,  became  extraordinarily  vivid  and  acute. 
The  Portuguese  rights  of  Patronage  not  only  did 
not  cease  to  operate,  but  the  incident  almost  gave 


Turn  of  the  Tide  157 

rise  to  schism  in  the  East.  Portugal,  resenting 
the  blow  given  to  her  pride  and  to  not  a  few  of 
her  interests,  contended  that  there  had  been  an 
aggression  on  her  rights.  It  required  all  the 
firmness  of  a  government  to  deal  with  the 
situation,  but  the  difficulty  in  the  adjustment  of 
the  conflicting  rights  was,  fortunately,  solved  by 
the  ratification  of  the  Concordat,  signed  on  the 
6th  February  1857,  between  Cardinal  di  Pietro, 
representing  the  Pope,  and  Rodrigo  de  Magalhaes, 
fully  accredited  and  commissioned  by  the 
Portuguese  Crown.  That  diplomatic  agreement, 
although  it  did  not  recognise  such  rights  as  existed 
before,  nevertheless  paved  the  way  for  peace 
between  the  conflicting  parties.  By  its  stipula- 
tions it  was  agreed  to  that  the  rights  of  Patronage 
of  the  Portuguese  Crown  should  be  exercised,  as 
regards  India  and  China,  over  the  cathedrals  of 
Goa,  Cranganore,  Cochin,  Mylapore,  Malay,  and 
Macau.  But  the  end  was  not  yet.  Issues  were 
raised  in  the  next  few  years  which  were  not 
visible  at  the  moment.  A  new  Concordat  had  to 
be  signed  in  the  year  1886,  and  to-day  the 
Archbishop  of  Goa  has  been  raised  by  the 
Constitution,  '*  Humanae  Salutis  Auctor,"  of  the 
1st  September  1886,  to  the  title  of  Patriarch  of 
the  East  Indies,  in  virtue  of  which  he  holds  the 


158      Porttigttese  Monarchy 


highest  place  in  the  Catholic  hierarchy  of  the 
East  Indies,  and  he  exercises  his  jurisdiction  over 
the  bishops  of  Damaum  with  the  title  of  Arch- 
bishop ad  honorem  of  Cranganore,  Cochin, 
Mylapore,  Macau  in  China,  his  area  of  jurisdiction 
extending  also  to  Mozambique  in  Africa,  in 
virtue  of  the  Constitution,  "  In  eminenti,"  of  1612. 

The  political  history  of  Portugal  now  turns 
upon  two  points  :  the  formation  of  a  new  party 
that  is  known  as  Regenerador,  consisting  of 
the  old  partisans  of  Saldanha,  and  having  the 
adherence  of  the  Cartistas,  and  the  contest  for 
power  between  the  two  parties  known  as  the 
Regener adores  or  Liberal  Conservatives,  who 
represent  the  Cartistas,  and  the  Progressistas  or 
Democratic  Liberals,  who  claim  the  inheritance  of 
the  Partido  Historico. 

With  LouM's  overthrow  in  1859,  the  first 
Regenerador  ministry  attained  power.  It  had 
for  its  chief  the  Duke  of  Terceira,  who  died  the 
same  year  and  was  replaced  by  Antonio  Augusto 
d*  Aguiar,  also  professing  the  same  political  creed. 
But  this  ministry  did  not  sustain  itself  long  in 
power.  The  financial  bills  of  Casal  Ribeiro 
caused  its  immediate  downfall,  and  matters  came 
to  such  a  crisis  that  the  ministry,  Loul^-d'  Avila, 
came  again  to  power,   Loul^  being  Premier  and 


Tarn  of  the  Tide  i59 

Antonio  Jos6  d'  Avila,  Minister  of  Finance ;  and 
the  ministry,  to  maintain  itself  in  power,  dissolved 
the  Cortes. 

From  these  scenes  of  political  conflicts  we  now 
pass  on  to  a  domestic  calamity  that  threw  the 
nation  into  deep  affliction  and  cast  an  additional 
gloom  over  the  country. 

In  November  1861,  the  King,  Pedro  v,  lay 
dying  in  his  capital,  desolated  by  a  pestilence. 
For  months  past  his  health  had  been  impaired, 
but  he  had  refused  to  leave  his  pestilence-stricken 
people.  A  tragic  note  was  struck  by  the  death 
of  his  younger  brother,  Dom  Fernando,  which 
occurred  on  the  6th  of  the  same  month.  On  the 
nth,  new  bitterness  was  poured  into  an  already 
brimming  cup  !  King  Pedro  v  died  of  cholera  in 
his  twenty-fourth  year  of  age,  and  he  was  followed 
to  the  grave  soon  after  by  his  brother,  Dom  Joao. 
Thus  in  less  than  two  months  three  members  of 
the  Royal  House  had  fallen  victims  to  the 
pestilence,  and  thus  ended  his  days — a  king  who, 
with  unconscious  simplicity,  endeared  himself  to 
the  nation,  and  whose  character  subdued  into 
affectionate  admiration  every  one  of  his  subjects. 
His  career,  though  a  short  one,  was  marked  by 
great  vicissitudes.  King  Pedro  v  endured  a  life 
of  sorrow  that  began  with  the  loss,  at  a  very  early 


160      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

period  of  marriage,  of  a  wife  whom  he  mourned 
till  death.  But  in  the  midst  of  all  his  misfortunes 
he  consoled  the  nation  in  her  trials.  A  heart 
worn  by  bitter  sorrowing  over  his  own  mis- 
fortunes and  those  of  his  country,  a  soul  unusually 
sensitive  and  therefore  unusually  suffering,  he 
fulfilled  the  minutest  duties  of  a  king,  and  he 
became  a  victim  to  the  natural  impulses  of  his 
disposition,  thus  earning  for  himself  a  reputation 
the  memory  of  which  still  lives  in  the  country. 

But  all  the  years  of  the  reign  of  this  king, 
"  smitten  in  the  flower  of  his  age  in  the  midst  of 
unfinished  works,  "^  are  not  to  be  marked  with 
the  cypress  emblems  of  melancholy  and  sorrow. 
The  reign  of  Pedro  v  is  not  to  be  associated 
only  with  the  humiliating  affair  of  Charles  et 
Georges^  in  which  triumphed  the  chicanery  of 
Napoleon  iii,  who,  in  revenge  for  Saldanha  having 

^   Vide  E.  Silvercruy's  Le  Portugal. 

^  "  This  French  ship  was  engaged  in  what  was  undoubtedly  the 
slave  trade,  though  slightly  disguised,  off  the  coast  of  Africa,  when 
it  was  seized  by  the  authorities  of  Mozambique,  and,  in  accordance 
with  the  laws  and  treaties  against  the  slave  trade,  its  captain, 
Roussel,  was  condemned  to  two  years'  imprisonment.  The 
Emperor,  Napoleon  ill,  glad  to  have  a  chance  of  posing  be- 
fore the  French  people,  and  counting  on  his  close  alliance  with 
England,  instantly  sent  a  large  fleet  to  the  Tagus  under  Admiral 
Lavaud  and  demanded  compensation,  which,  as  England  showed 
no  signs  of  assistance,  Portugal  was  compelled  to  pay."  Vide 
Morse  Stephens'  article  on  "Portugal"  in  the  Encyclopcedia 
BritannicUy  9th  ed.,  vol.  xix. 


in-' 


DOM   PEDRO  V,    KING  OF   PORTUGAL 
(1853-1861) 


Tarn  of  the  Tide  I6i 

allowed  French  Republican  refugees  to  settle  in 
Portugal,  thought  it  a  good  opportunity  to  dictate 
terms  to^  Portugal  and  compel  this  small  country 
to  pay  a  heavy  compensation  of  349,000  francs 
to  France — an  injustice  so  brutal  that  a  dis- 
tinguished Frenchman,  in  the  person  of  Paul 
Leroi-Beaulieu,  some  years  after,  in  his  well- 
known  work,  De  la  Colonisation  chez  les  Peuples 
Modernes,  declared  that  act  as  a  great  blemish 
on  Napoleon  iii's  career.  The  pestilence-stricken 
age  of  Dom  Pedro  v,  however,  was  cheered  by 
a  period  of  great  intellectual  activity.  We  have 
at  this  time  in  Portugal  a  rising  and  most 
promising  generation  of  poets  and  historians, 
indisputably  the  best  since  the  learned  days  of 
Francisco  Manuel  de  Nascimento,  known  as 
Filinto  Elysio,  who  gave  the  initial  impulse  to 
the  revival  of  letters,  and  the  famous  Bocage, 
whose  charming  sonnets  and  odes  are  still  heard 
in  midwinter  in  many  a  Portuguese  home. 

Among  the  leaders  of  this  new  generation 
stand  pre-eminent  Almeida  Garrett  and  Alexandre 
Herculano,  the  two  great  representatives  of  the 
school  of  romanticism,  who  owed  much  to  their 
exile  in  England  and  France,  which  was  an 
inspiration  to  both.     The  great  political  changes 

which  distinguished  the  period  preceding  the  firm 
II 


162      Portagaese  Monarchy 

establishment  of  the  Constitutional  Charter  had 
reflected  in  the  literature  of  the  country.  Letters 
and  arts  had  died  in  Portugal  from  the  time  the 
nation  had  to  reckon  with  foreign  as  well  as 
domestic  oppressors. 

A  foreign  invasion  had  placed  her  national 
existence  at  the  mercy  of  a  general.  The 
country  had  hardly  been  free  from  the  scourges 
of  a  military  rule  when  the  liberties  of  the  land 
were  destroyed  by  Dom  Miguel,  who  behaved 
with  a  tyranny  and  intolerance  that  made  the 
task  of  political  union  and  national  progress 
impossible. 

In  those  circumstances  it  was  hardly  surprising 
that  the  native  literature  of  the  country  should 
have  sunk  into  a  very  low  and  feeble  state.  But 
among  the  multitude  of  crimes  committed  in 
those  days  of  utter  lawlessness  was  that  national 
questions  were  turned  into  a  personal  dangerous 
quarrel.  The  disorder  which  had  resulted  from 
the  political  passions,  such  as  in  days  of  confusion 
and  anarchy  rise  to  the  surface,  had  compelled 
men  of  letters  to  leave  the  country  and,  in  the 
cause  of  liberty,  seek  refuge  in  a  foreign  land. 
But  as  the  political  storm  gradually  abated  and 
liberty — which  is  the  life  of  literature — had  in  great 
measure  been  restored  to  the  country,  a  new  era 


Tfi^ 


ALMEIDA  GARRETT 
(1799-1854) 


Tarn  of  the  Tide  i63 

in  the  literary  history  of  the  country  began,  and 
Portugal  entered  into  the  great  literary  move- 
ment of  the  age  under  the  influence  of  Byron, 
Lamartine,  Chateaubriand,  Alfred  de  Vigny,  and 
Victor  Hugo.  This  new  era  was  characterised 
by  a  spirit  of  investigation  which  was  neither 
pedantic  nor  servile,  but  free  and  emulative, 
which  called  into  exercise  abilities  which  were 
directed  to  higher  ideals. 

Thus  Almeida  Garrett  produced  works  of  signal 
merit,  notably  his  Romanceiro,  which  presents  an 
admirable  collection  of  popular  romances  which 
derived  fresh  charm  from  his  elegant  style ;  his 
Dona  Branca y  with  its  codes  of  chivalry,  with  all 
its  traditions ;  and  Camoes,  an  invaluable  monu- 
ment to  the  great  epic  which  the  admiration  of 
posterity  would  not  allow  to  perish.  Actuated 
by  a  spirit  of  patriotism  that  never  deserted  him, 
Garrett  also  revived  the  Portuguese  theatre,  which, 
since  the  early  efforts  of  Gil  Vicente,  the  first  and 
greatest  of  Portuguese  dramatists,  had  been  in  a 
state  of  decadence.  With  his  play,  Luis  de  Sousa, 
chiefly  founded  on  historical  traditions,  he  appealed 
to  the  national  sentiment ;  and  by  producing  such 
plays  as  the  Alfagema  de  Santarem,  where  he 
depicted  the  brilliant  epoch  of  John  i,  the  Auto 
de  Gil  Vicente,  describing  the  times  of  Manuel  i. 


164      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

and  the  Filipa  de  Vilhena,  relating  to  the  great 
period  of  independence,  Garrett  tried  to  do  for 
Portugal  what  Shakespeare  had  done  for  England. 
This  movement  accomplished  much  for  the  political 
union  and  the  cause  of  national  progress,  and  the 
new  literary  aspirations  of  Garrett  embodied 
themselves  most  distinctly  in  that  pleiad  of 
poets  and  prose  writers  that  came  after  him, 
consisting  of  Bulhao  Pato,  Gomes  d'  Amorim, 
E.  Vidal,  Joao  de  Lemos,  Palmeirim,  Soares  de 
Passos,  Thomaz  Ribeiro,  Mendes  Leal,  Julio 
Diniz,  Camillo  Castello  Branco,  and  Pinheiro 
Chagas. 

Alexandre  Herculano,  on  the  other  hand, 
having  ransacked  ancient  chronicles  hitherto 
buried  in  musty  manuscripts,  produced  O  Eurico 
and  Monge  de  Cyster,  the  two  great  historical 
romances,  and  other  novels  that  are  said  to  bear 
the  stamp  of  the  influence  of  Lamartine  and 
Walter  Scott.  The  great  triumph  of  Herculano, 
however,  was  that,  when  clearing  his  way  through 
the  endless  and  hopeless  labyrinth  of  fanciful 
legends  and  chronicles  that  embellished  Portuguese 
history,  which,  till  then,  had  not  been  deeply  studied 
or  distinctly  understood,  he  wrote  his  History  of 
Portugal  and  The  Origin  of  the  Inquisition  in 
Portugal  \    and   in   his   History  of  Portugal^    a 


Turn  of  the  Tide  165 

masterpiece  of  historic  prose,  is  comprised  the 
history  of  Portugal  till  the  reign  of  Affonso  iii. 
Accustomed  to  the  scientific  methods  of  Niebuhr 
and  Ranke,  he  produced  a  work  bearing  relation 
to  contested  and  difficult  points  in  some  periods 
of  early  Portuguese  history,  and  thus  created 
disciples  in  the  historians  that  followed  him ;  and 
in  the  historical  works  of  Rebello  da  Silva, 
Visconde  de  Santarem,  and  Latino  Coelho,  the 
influence  of  Herculano  became  paramount. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  political  situation  of 
the  country.  On  the  death  of  Dom  Pedro  v, 
Ferdinand,  the  King  Consort,  who  had  survived 
the  death  of  his  wife,  Queen  Maria  ii,  and  his 
three  sons,  assumed  the  Regency  until  the  arrival 
of  Dom  Louis  i,  who  was  travelling  on  the 
Continent,  when  he  was  unexpectedly  summoned 
to  ascend  the  throne.  The  political  events  of  the 
beginning  of  the  new  reign  relate  chiefly  to  the 
Lould-Avila  ministry  that  King  Louis  i  main- 
tained in  power.  The  ministry,  Lould-d'  Avila, 
continued  in  power  till  April  1865,  when  it  was 
replaced  by  a  new  ministry  presided  over  by  Sd 
de  Bandeira. 

The  situation  was  now  worse  than  ever. 
Domestic  difficulties  pressed  hard  upon  the  new 
Government.     Parties  ran  into  extremes  in  their 


166      Porttigiiese  Monarchy 

attempt  to  seize  the  helm  of  State,  instead  of 
helping  those  who  held  it  to  steer  in  the  right 
direction. 

In  the  meantime,  it  was  unfortunate  for  Portugal 
that,  at  such  a  critical  turn  in  her  domestic  policy, 
the  country  should  have  lost  two  of  her  great 
politicians.    Soon  after  the  death  of  Dom  Pedro  v, 
Manuel  da  Silva  Passos,  a  politician  of  indepen- 
dent mind  and  of  very  high  personal  character, 
had   passed   away,  and  towards  the  end  of  the 
year    1862  Jose  Estevao,  a  great  orator  and   a 
man  of  dauntless  courage  and  inflexible  integrity, 
who  called  the   attention    of  the   nation   to  the 
humiliating    affair    of    Charles   et    Georges,    had 
died.     During  the  years  that  followed.  Parliament 
met  only  to  raise  every  other  question  which  can 
embarrass  a  Government.     Ministries  were  driven 
from  power,  one  after  another,  without  removing 
from  the  nation  her  grievances.     This  state  of 
_affairs    precipitated    a    financial   crisis,    and    the 
ministry  of  Joaquim  Antonio  d'  Aguiar,  in  order 
to    procure    funds    for    the    payment    of    State 
creditors,  had  to  adopt  new  administrative  reforms. 
It  even  enforced  food  taxes,  which  provoked  a 
revolution  in  Lisbon  in  January  1868,  after  which 
Aguiar   had    to    tender   his   resignation.     Avila, 
who  then  was  called  to  power,  proposed  in  the 


Turn  of  the  Tide  i67 

Parliament  an  abrogation  of  those  laws  of  his 
predecessor  which  had  given  rise  to  disorders 
and  more  than  once  threatened  internal  peace. 
But  the  Opposition  did  all  it  could  to  defeat  the 
Government's  proposals,  with  the  result  that  the 
Cortes  were  dissolved  and  the  laws  arbitrarily 
suspended  by  the  Government.  Avila,  however, 
who  thought  he  held  the  solution  in  his  hands, 
resolutely  put  before  the  new  Cortes  new 
proposals  to  improve  a  financial  administration 
that  was  ruinously  vicious  and  inefficient.  The 
new  Cortes,  when  summoned  to  discuss  these 
proposals,  refused  to  sanction  them.  To  meet 
such  a  situation  Avila  demanded  of  the  King  a 
dissolution  of  the  Cortes,  which,  being  refused, 
the  ministry  had  to  resign. 

In  the  midst  of  grave  internal  affairs,  when 
Portugal  was  absorbed  in  her  domestic  concerns, 
there  took  place  an  event  that  deserves  mention, 
and  which  brings  forward  the  character  of  Dom 
Ferdinand  of  Saxe  Coburg,  the  Kings  father, 
among  those  of  the  other  great  personalities  of 
the  time.  When  the  Spanish  monarchy  became 
almost  extinguished  with  the  flight  of  Isabella  ii 
to  France,  when  none  of  the  Bourbon  candidates 
were  thought  acceptable,  and  Prim  was  free  to 
find,  if  he  could,  a  monarch  for  the  vacant  throne, 


168      Portagtiese  Monarchy 

the  Government  of  Madrid,  presided  over  by 
Serrano,  made  a  proposal  for  offering  the  Crown 
of  Spain  to  Dom  Ferdinand,  and  it  had  decided 
to  send  over  a  special  mission  to  express  to  Dom 
Ferdinand  the  desire  of  Spain.  But  Dom 
Ferdinand,  though  a  foreign  Prince,  had  the 
conscience  and  self-command  to  declare  to  Spain 
that  he  was  not  prepared  to  abdicate  the  rights  of 
a  Portuguese  and  convert  himself  into  a  Spanish 
King ;  and  the  Marquis  Sd  de  Bandeira  lost  no 
time  in  informing  the  Portuguese  representative 
in  Madrid  that  Dom  Ferdinand  was  not  willing 
to  receive  the  Spanish  delegates  of  the  special 
mission  coming  over  to  Portugal.  Dom  Ferdi- 
nand went  so  far  as  to  declare  that  he  would 
decline  to  accept  the  Crown  of  Spain  even  if  he 
were  elected  by  her  Cortes — a  step  of  which  it  was 
hard  to  prognosticate  the  effects,  but  which  un- 
doubtedly contributed  to  lower  the  importance  of 
the  Iberian  Federation.  This  refusal  naturally 
displeased  Spain,  and  Castellar,  the  great  leader 
of  the  Spanish  Republicans,  gave  vent  to  his 
indignation  by  insulting  Dom  Ferdinand  openly 
in  the  Cortes.  Yet  that  offer  was  but  an  ex- 
pedient resorted  to  by  those  who  were  plotting 
against  the  autonomy  of  Portugal,  and  were  avail- 
ing  themselves   of  a  favourable  circumstance  to 


Tarn  of  the  Tide  i69 

give  it  a  blow.  "  These  people  are  our  great 
enemies,  for  they  hinder  the  passing  of  useful 
legislation  which  might  work  for  the  common 
good  of  the  two  peoples,  such  as  the  develop- 
ment of  international  communication,  progress  in 
the  betterment  of  the  material  conditions  of  the 
two  countries,  the  unity  of  weights,  measures, 
money,  and  custom  regulations,"^  had  been  the 
words  uttered  by  Dom  Pedro  v  when  this  same 
proposal  had  been  made  to  that  unfortunate 
monarch. 

The  nation  no  doubt  was  feeble,  and  her 
political  energies  had  been  greatly  strained  by 
party  struggle ;  but  nevertheless  she  enjoyed  a 
great  degree  of  political  consciousness.  The 
productiveness  of  Portugal  in  great  literary  in- 
dividualities had  been  phenomenal  during  this 
epoch.  They  had  produced  works  of  literature 
which  are  the  pride  of  the  country  to-day.  This 
had  asserted  the  rights  of  independence  of  a 
people  and  strengthened  the  belief  in  Portugal 
for  the  Portuguese.  Dom  Ferdinand  therefore, 
regardless  of  the  lines  from  the  Phenissae  of 
Euripides, — **  that  if  ever  it  be  fitting  to  commit 
wrong,  the  noblest  motive  for  this  is  the  gain  of 
sovereign  power," — took  the  course  which  he  con- 

^  "  Cesare  Cantu  :  Gli  ultimi  trinta  anni." 


170      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

celved  the  most  consistent  with  the  welfare  of  the 
nation. 

After  the  resignation  of  Avila  s  ministry,  it  is 
almost  unnecessary  to  add,  the  gravity  of  the 
internal  situation  had  become  still  more  accentu- 
ated. Soon  after,  the  Duke  de  Saldanha,  who 
a  few  years  before  held  the  political  destinies  of 
Portugal  in  his  hands,  and  who  had  long  been 
waiting  for  his  turn  at  the  wheel,  put  himself  at 
the  head  of  some  troops,  surrounded  the  Royal 
Palace  on  the  19th  May  1870,  and  compelled 
the  King  to  dismiss  the  ministry  of  the  Duke  de 
Lould  that  was  in  power ;  and  he  assumed 
Premiership ;  but  the  Cortes  refusing  to  accept 
the  octogenarian  marshal's  dictatorship,  Saldanha 
had  to  leave  power  on  the  30th  August  of  that 
year.  That  bold  coup  ddtat,  however,  was  only 
a  flicker  of  the  old  enthusiasm  for  pronuncia- 
mentos,  which  disappeared  with  Saldanha,  who 
was  soon  after  appointed  to  the  most  important 
diplomatic  mission  which  Portugal  sends  forth — 
that  of  Portuguese  Minister  in  London,  where  he 
died  in  1876. 

The  situation  now  required  a  prompt  and 
effectual  solution,  and  it  pleased  King  Louis  to 
call  to  his  counsels  Pontes  Pereira  de  Mello,  who 
organised  a  ministry  of  Regeneradores  and  took 


Turn  of  the  Tide  i7i 

upon  himself  the  responsiblHty  of  the  ministry  of 
finance.  Thus  he  hoped  to  set  the  national 
finance  on  a  sound  footing,  but  the  question  of 
questions  was  whether  the  Opposition  would  con- 
sent to  contribute  towards  the  solution  of  such  a 
crisis. 

The  great  ferocity  with  which  the  Opposition 
had  assailed  the  decree  of  December  1878,  issued 
during  the  administration  of  Pontes,  had  painfully 
convinced  the  country  of  the  impossibility  of  any 
compromise  between  the  Government  and  the 
Opposition.  That  decree  had  sanctioned  for 
twenty  years  a  grant  including  all  gold  and  other 
mines  belonging  to  the  State  in  Eastern  Africa 
to  Captain  Paiva  d'  Andrade  and  the  Companies 
he  might  form  for  their  exploration,  on  condition 
that,  besides  the  usual  taxes,  he  should  pay  to  the 
State  five  per  cent,  of  the  gold  obtained.  But 
the  Progressistas  had  violently  opposed  the 
decree,  and  tried  to  justify  their  panicmongering 
on  the  ground  that  the  Government  was  endanger- 
ing the  safety  of  the  colonies  by  opening  out 
chances  for  foreigners  and  foreign  capital. 

Experience  had  therefore  shown  that,  under  the 
circumstances,  it  was  impossible  for  Pontes  to 
remedy  the  financial  situation.  To  meet  a  deficit 
of  nearly  ;^665,ooo  in  the  Budget  of  the  year,  he 


172      Porttigtcese  Monarchy 

had  shown  how  a  sum  of  ;^  12  2,000  might  be  raised 
by  increasing  the  duties  on  tobacco ;  but  the 
ministry,  being  assailed  and  obstructed  at  every 
turn,  had  to  abandon  power  in  May  1879. 

The  ministry  which  under  Anselmo  Jos^ 
Braamcamp  —  who,  on  the  death  of  Loul6,  had 
been  elected  leader  of  the  Progressistas — attained 
power  later,  was  not  to  enjoy  a  longer  tenure  of 
office.  Its  Bills,  which  aimed  to  create  new 
sources  of  revenue  and  cover  the  deficit  of  about 
^1,100,000  shown  in  the  Budget  of  the  year,  and 
the  proposal  of  an  income  tax — undertaken  with 
the  most  excellent  motives,  as  nearly  all  such 
legislation  was,  but  which  was  thought  to  be  a 
great  hardship  to  the  nation — gave  the  Opposi- 
tion an  opportunity  to  stir  up  the  country's  wrath 
against  the  Government. 

Meanwhile,  the  Lourengo  Marques  Treaty, 
arranged  between  England  and  Portugal  by  the 
late  Cabinet,  but  signed  by  the  Portuguese  Pleni- 
potentiary after  the  Cabinet  had  resigned,  forced 
the  struggle  between  the  two  parties  to  an 
immediate  issue.  The  Progressistas  who  were 
in  power  had  raised  objection  to  the  concessions 
made  by  that  treaty,  for  which  they  thought 
Portugal  had  received  no  adequate  return  from 
her  ally  ;  and  to  relieve  their  ministry  of  responsi- 


Tarn  of  the  Tide  173 

bility  in  that  treaty,  they  protested  against  the 
article  4,  sec.  2,  ''giving  the  British  Govern- 
ment right  to  land  and  embark  troops  at  Lourengo 
Marques  with  free  passage  from  there  across 
Portuguese  territory,"  article  5,  sec.  C,  "  respect- 
ing the  rights  to  maintain  English  bonded 
houses  there,"  and  article  12,  sec.  4,  "giving 
discretionary  powers  to  the  Governor  of  Mozam- 
bique to  authorise  British  cruisers  to  act  inde- 
pendently in  Portuguese  territorial  waters  for  the 
suppression  of  slavery."  Accordingly,  the  Govern- 
ment considered  a  renewal  of  the  treaty  necessary, 
and  the  negotiations  carried  on  between  the  two 
Governments  from  August  till  December  1880  re- 
sulted in  an  Additional  Act,  signed  31st  December, 
whereby  its  former  perpetuity  ceased  and  twelve 
years  were  stipulated  as  the  duration  of  the  treaty. 
But  when  the  Government  met  the  Cortes  with 
the  announcement  of  the  alterations  the  treaty 
had  undergone,  and  it  came  for  discussion  in 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  the  Regeneradores 
opposed  its  provisions  so  violently  that,  when 
the  time  came  for  voting,  they  left  the  House  in 
a  body.  Soon  after,  the  Government  submitted 
the  treaty  to  the  Chamber  of  Peers,  where  the 
Regeneradores  held  the  majority,  and  it  was 
rejected.      Under   the   circumstances   the   Prime 


174      Portagtiese  Monarchy 

Minister  asked  the  King  for  an  adjourn- 
ment of  the  Cortes,  which  being  refused,  the 
ministry  of  Braamcamp,  unable  to  stand  the 
severity  and  violence  of  the  Opposition,  resigned 
in  March  1881.  This  ministry  was  replaced 
by  a  Regenerador  ministry  under  Antonio 
Rodrigues  Sampaio,  twice  Home  Minister,  which 
lived  till  November  of  that  year. 

The  troubles  of  these  ministries  by  no  means 
ended  with  them.  The  great  African  problem 
manifestly  accelerated  a  crisis  in  the  affairs  of 
Portugal  and  inflamed  more  than  ever  the 
partisan  spirit.  When  Pontes  Pereira  de  Mello 
came  again  to  power,  the  Congo  affair  and  the 
treaty  concluded  in  London  on  26th  February 
1884  occupied  the  attention  of  the  nation  to 
the  exclusion  of  everything  else ;  and  soon  after 
the  politicians  resumed  their  discussion  on  the 
Conference  of  Berlin,  convened  through  a  foreign 
minister  who  was  sent  on  a  mission  to  the 
Courts  of  London,  Paris,  Berlin,  and  Hague, 
and  which  defined  the  rights  of  Portugal  and 
settled  her  position  in  Congo. 

To  Pontes  Pereira  de  Mello,  however,  who 
was  a  statesman  of  large  views,  the  financial 
state  of  the  country  had  become  the  subject  of 
utmost   importance.       He    was   eager   to   devise 


Tarn  of  the  Tide  175 

means  for  lightening  the  national  burden.  But 
this  chance  had  been  denied  to  him  by  the 
Opposition ;  and  Pontes,  in  order  to  weaken 
the  Opposition,  had  even  deemed  it  convenient 
to  realise  the  desires  of  Radical  Reformers  by 
bringing  in,  in  1883,  the  Constitutional  Reform 
Bill,  which  was  published  as  law  on  24th  July 
1885,  its  most  important  feature  being  the 
abolition  of  the  hereditary  principle  in  the 
Chamber  of  Peers. 

It  is  interesting,  however,  to  note  that  this 
Bill  formed  a  part  of  the  Progressista  pro- 
gramme. But  what  the  Regenerador  Prime 
Minister  wanted  was  not  so  much  to  outbid 
the  rival  party  in  her  promises  to  the  country, 
as  to  maintain  himself  in  power  and  win  the 
support  of  a  new  party  led  by  Dias  Ferreira, 
the  famous  legislator,  Pinheiro  Chagas,  and 
Manuel  Vaz  Preto — a  party  that  adhered  to 
the  Constitution  of  1838,  with  an  elective  Senate 
and  Council  of  State.  It  was  therefore  no 
special  desire  for  special  reform. 

The  debate  on  this  Bill,  however,  was  highly 
interesting. 

The  Government  thought  it  had  made  a 
great  stroke  of  policy  in  the  Parliament ;  but 
as  the    details    oozed   out,    it    became    evident 


176      Portttgtcese  Monarchy 

that  the  Progressistas,  though  believing  in 
the  principles  of  that  Bill,  only  saw  in  the 
provisions  of  the  Act  materials  for  protracted 
discussion.  The  case  for  the  Opposition  against 
the  Reform  Bill  was  the  part  of  that  Bill  by 
which  it  was  provided  that  four  years  had  to 
pass  before  any  further  proposal  or  reform  could 
be  made. 

Thus  the  ministry  of  Pontes,  unable  to  face 
such  an  Opposition,  and  consequently  unable  to 
meet  the  most  pressing  needs  of  the  Exchequer, 
resigned  in  February  1886.  After  him  came 
Jos6  Luciano  de  Castro,  who,  on  the  death  of 
Braamcamp,  had  been  elected,  in  1885,  leader  of 
the  Progressistas.  He  attained  power  with  a 
ministry  that  achieved  an  inspiring  success  in 
endeavouring  to  settle  some  of  the  African 
difficulties  by  signing  a  number  of  treaties  of 
delimitation. 

At  this  stage  occurred  the  death  of  King 
Louis,  who  passed  away  on  the  19th  October 
1889 — a  king  who  possessed,  in  an  eminent 
degree,  all  the  virtues  of  the  best  Constitutional 
monarchs.  It  may  be  well  to  state  that  King 
Louis  took  great  pains  to  keep  himself  outside 
and  above  party  politics,  and  so  far  as  his  pre- 
rogatives permitted,  he  delivered  himself  at  times, 


*  '  "  e  ,e  s 
c  e  e  e  «c  e 
1 1      c    e  e  e   t 


c       c    c    ,c 


•^ 


ALEXANDRE   HERCULANO 

(1810-1877) 


Ttirn  of  the  Tide  177 

from  the  dictation  of  his  Ministers.  Last  but 
not  least,  a  King  who,  when  the  Pan-Iberians 
carried  an  agitation  in  his  favour,  stated  in  a 
letter  to  Lould  "that  he  meant  to  die  as  he 
lived — a  Portuguese." 

Devoted  to  literature  and  arts,  and  well 
acquainted  with  the  writings  of  Shakespeare, 
whose  Hamlet  he  translated  into  Portuguese,  he 
took  a  peculiar  pleasure  in  encouraging  letters 
and  sciences  in  his  country. 

The  years  of  his  reign,  notwithstanding  all  the 
failings  that  may  be  discovered  in  the  political 
history  of  this  epoch,  witnessed  a  marked  progress. 
A  decree,  signed  in  1862,  did  away  with  capital 
punishment.  Another  decree  abolished  slavery 
in  all  the  Portuguese  territories.  An  important 
principle  was  introduced  in  the  Constitution  by 
the  reconstitution  of  the  House  of  Peers  from  an 
hereditary  chamber  to  one  of  life-peers.  There 
was  a  great  extension  of  railway  and  telegraph 
systems  owing  to  the  measures  of  Pontes 
Pereira  de  Mello,  whose  administration  had 
greatly  benefited  the  country.  The  efforts  of 
such  a  literary  man  as  Antonio  Feliciano  de 
Castilho,  though  much  blamed  by  his  contem- 
poraries  for    his    classicist    proclivities,    resulted 

in  a  wide    diffusion   of  primary   and    secondary 
12 


178      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

education.  A  promulgation  of  a  new  code 
regulating  the  functions  of  the  administrative 
bodies  of  the  nation  had  helped  to  smooth  the 
working  of  the  executive ;  and,  finally,  the  third 
centenary  celebration  of  Camoes  in  1880  was 
made  the  occasion  for  a  demonstration  of  good 
feelings  between  the  Portuguese  in  the  Continent 
and  the  Brazilians,  who  joined  together  to  honour 
the  memory  of  a  bard  whose  glories  they  both 
share — a  feeling  which,  of  course,  arises  from  the 
sense  of  common  citizenship. 


IX 

A  FRIENDS'  QUARREL 

AMIDST  the  changes  that  were  in  progress 
in  Portugal,  a  change  still  more  important 
had  taken  place  in  her  colonial  policy,  which  had 
for  its  objects  the  opening  of  new  fields  for 
colonisation  and  industry.  Hitherto  the  rich 
African  colonies  had  rested  upon  too  material  a 
basis.  A  system  of  monopolies  had  flourished 
towards  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century.  It 
had  enabled  the  Portuguese  governors  to  fleece 
the  colonies  for  their  own  advantage — a  state 
of  affairs  that  continued  till  1838,  when  the 
harbours  of  Mozambique  were  declared  open  to 
national  and  foreign  trade.  Later  on  the  colonial 
expansion  in  America  had  given  an  enormous 
importance  to  the  slave  trade  that  went  on 
increasing  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries.  Angola  and  Mozambique  had  become 
the  chief  marts  for  this  traffic  in  human  flesh 
with  all  its  miseries.  The  Portuguese,  in  their 
constant    anxiety   to    make  wealthy   returns    to 


180      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

the  mother  country,  had  exploited  the  riches 
of  Brazil  by  draining  the  African  colonies  of 
their  best  population,  and  disgraced  themselves 
by  the  atrocities  which  were  committed  in  those 
times  under  the  Portuguese  flag. 

The  time  had  now  come  when  steps  were 
taken  for  the  extirpation  of  this  evil,  and 
Portugal  made  a  determined  attempt  at  abolish- 
ing slavery.  To  carry  this  into  execution 
several  decrees  had  become  necessary.  On  the 
loth  December  1836,  a  decree  had  abolished 
the  slave  traffic  in  all  the  Portuguese  dominions, 
which  proved  more  than  an  experiment  and 
laid  the  foundation  of  future  colonial  prosperity. 
But  a  single  decree  could  not  suppress  the 
evil.  It  naturally  gave  rise  to  clandestine 
traffic.  But,  fortunately,  there  rose  to  the  occa- 
sion a  man  like  the  Marquis  de  Sd  de  Bandeira, 
the  Wilberforce  of  Portugal,  whose  untiring 
efforts  in  the  cause  of  justice  and  humanity 
resulted  in  the  Duke  de  Palmella  signing  the 
treaty  of  1842,  by  which  Portugal  secured  the 
co-operation  of  England  to  put  down  the  slave 
traffic  in  Africa.  That  treaty,  as  justly  pointed 
out  by  Andrade  Corvo  in  his  Estudos  sobre 
as  Provincias  Ultramarinas,  was  most  beneficial 
to  the  interests  of  Portugal.     But   slavery  was 


A  Friends'  Qtiarrcl         i8i 

not  yet  destroyed.  In  1854  a  decree  ordered 
the  registration  of  all  slaves.  It  also  set  free 
all  the  slaves  belonging  to  the  State.  Two 
years  later  a  decree  abolished  slavery  at  Ambriz, 
Cabinda,  and  Molembo.  Another  decree,  issued 
in  1858,  announced  that  twenty  years  henceforth 
slavery  was  to  cease  in  all  the  dominions  of 
the  Crown ;  but  the  very  next  year  a  decree 
ordered  the  immediate  abolition  of  slavery,  and 
for  that  purpose  the  27th  April  1877  was  fixed 
as  the  day  for  that  decree  to  be  enforced. 
But  a  renewed  vigour  began  to  make  itself 
felt  in  this  campaign,  so  that  in  1875  ^  ^^^ 
was  passed  by  which  slavery,  in  no  matter 
what  form,  was  abolished  in  all  the  Portuguese 
dominions. 

Thus  was  laid  the  foundation  of  a  colonial 
policy  that  could  no  longer  be  identified  with 
a  policy  of  material  rather  than  moral  force. 

The  effective  occupation  of  Angola  in  1848  by 
Joaquim  Rodrigo  Graga,  and  the  settlement  of 
a  European  colony  at  Mozambique  in  1856, 
were  the  first  steps  towards  the  formation  of 
a  colonial  empire  in  Africa.  The  project  of 
securing  the  formation  of  a  continuous  belt  of 
empire  by  uniting  Angola  to  Mozambique,  and 
thus  connecting  the  Atlantic  and  Indian  Oceans, 


182      Porttcgticse  Monarchy 

which  had  been  entertained  for  a  long  time, 
had  thrown  a  great  interest  upon  Africa. 
Although  the  daj's  of  her  greatness  in  colonial 
expansion  were  now  gone  by,  and  Portugal 
was  reduced  to  the  fourth  colonial  power,  she 
had  now  her  explorers  like  Serpa  Pinto,  Antonio 
Maria  Cardoso,  Brito  Capello,  Ivens  Victor 
Cordon,  Augusto  Cardoso,  Paiva  d'  Andrade, 
Henrique  de  Carvalho,  and  Alvaro  Castelloes, 
who  had  resumed  the  pioneering  work  done 
by  their  ancestors  in  the  sphere  of  travel  and 
exploration.  In  this  she  could  challenge,  and 
justly,  all  modern  Europe. 

The  scientific  expeditions  of  1877  had  therefore 
not  only  contributed  to  create  much  speculation 
concerning  Africa,  but  had  been  the  means  of 
producing  effective  enthusiasm  in  the  country. 

The  sanguine  hopes  for  the  future  were  well 
justified  by  the  successful  efforts  of  the  Portu- 
guese explorers  in  the  past.  Dr.  Francisco  Jose 
Maria  de  Lacerda  e  Almeida,  that  great  explorer 
who,  strange  to  say,  predicted  in  1796  that  the 
seizure  of  Cape  Town  by  the  British  would  lead 
to  the  creation  of  a  Great  British  empire  in 
Africa,  a  man  noted  for  his  scientific  exploration 
of  Brazil,  had,  in  1798,  made  his  great  inland 
journey  from  Mozambique  and  reached  Cazembe, 


A  Friends'  Quarrel         i83 

where  he  died.  But  the  real  crossing  of  the 
Continent  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Indian  Ocean 
was  not  accomplished  till  the  natives,  Pombeiros, 
Pedro  Joao  Baptista,  and  Amaro  Jos6,  under  the 
guidance  of  the  Portuguese  Governor,  Antonio 
Saldanha  de  Gama,  and  the  Portuguese  Colonel, 
Honorato  da  Costa,  who  had  set  out  from 
Angola,  passed  through  the  territories  of  Muata 
Hienvo,  the  Cazembe,  and  reached  the  river 
Zambesi  between  the  years  1802  and  181 1.  A 
good  many  years  elapsed  before  another  successful 
attempt  was  made  by  Major  Francisco  Coimbra 
to  cross  the  territories  lying  between  Mozambique 
and  Benguella,  in  the  years  1838  to  1848.  With 
that  same  object  Silva  Porto,  accompanied  by  a 
native  servant,  had,  in  the  years  1852  to  1856, 
crossed  from  Benguella  to  the  mouth  of  the  river 
Rovunna,  the  explorer  having  spent  a  year  and 
two  months  on  his  journey. 

But  when  an  important  part  of  this  colonial 
programme  was  to  be  carried  out,  the  Portu- 
guese attempt  at  expansion  was  frustrated  by 
the  disastrous  results  of  a  dispute  which  dis- 
turbed the  friendly  relations  between  England 
and  Portugal.  The  British  colonial  interests  in 
that  part  of  Africa  known  to-day  as  Rhodesia 
had  clashed  with  those  of   Portugal,  and   there 


184      Porttigiicse  Monarchy 

arose  a  dispute  between  the  two  countries  over 
Manicaland  and  Shire  Highlands. 

So  much  for  generalities.     Let  us  now  go  into 
particulars  of  this  unfortunate  incident  that  marked 
the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  King  Carlos,  who, 
on  the  death  of  his  father,  King  Louis,  ascended 
the  throne  of  Portugal.     It  was  in   Quilimane, 
the  district  of  the  Province  of  Mozambique,  the 
principal  settlement  of  the  Portuguese  in  Africa, 
which  is  situated  on  the  northern  arm  of  the  delta 
of  the   Zambesi,  in  the  region  of  the  Shire,  and 
more  to  the  north  in  the  country  of  the  Matabeles 
and  the  Mashonas,  that  the  disputed  territories 
were  situated.     The  dispute  began  when  a  Rev. 
J.  S.    Moffat,    British  Assistant-Commissioner  in 
Bechuanaland,  signed  a  treaty  on   nth  February 
1888,  by  which  Lobengula,  a  Matabele  Chief  who 
had  put  his  mark  to  it,  agreed  not  to  enter  into 
relations    with   any   foreign    power   without    the 
sanction  of  Great  Britain.     That  treaty  raised  a 
protest  from  the  Portuguese  Consul  at  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope  ;  and  when  the  provisions  of  the 
treaty,  by  which   England  was  declaring  a  Pro- 
tectorate over  territories  that  Portugal  was  con- 
testing as  her  own,  had  been   communicated  by 
the  British  Colonial  Office  to  the  Foreign  Office, 
Miguel    Dantas,    the    Portuguese     Minister     in 


A  Friends'  Quarrel         iss 

London,  lodged  a  protest  against  it.  On  the 
28th  May  the  protest  of  the  Portuguese  Consul 
at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  had  reached  London. 
The  text  of  the  treaty  with  Lobengula  received 
by  the  British  Government  on  the  31st  May  was 
communicated  to  the  Portuguese  Government  on 
the  nth  June.  On  the  24th  of  that  same  month 
the  Portuguese  Foreign  Minister  received  an 
official  note  to  the  effect  that  the  British  Govern- 
ment considered  the  region  comprising  the  terri- 
tories of  Khama  and  of  the  Matabeles  subject  to 
the  British  Protectorate,  and  on  the  ist  August 
Sir  George  Bonham  had  declared  that  the  British 
Government  regarded  Mashonaland  as  a  part  of 
the  British  Protectorate. 

In  the  meantime  Cecil  Rhodes,  who  was  to 
play  so  great  a  part  in  consolidating  the  British 
dominions  in  Africa,  had  succeeded,  in  October 
1888,  in  obtaining  from  Lobengula  a  concession 
of  all  mining  rights  in  Mashonaland.  The 
Portuguese  Consul  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope 
and  the  Portuguese  Minister  in  London  had 
protested  against  this  concession.  But  in  vain 
the  Portuguese  representatives  had  recourse  to 
protests  to  induce  Lord  Salisbury  to  alter  his 
resolve.  He  was  maintaining  the  rights  of  the 
Matabele  Chief  over  Mashonaland,  including  the 


186      Porttigttcse  Monarchy 

people  under  the  dominion  of  Gaza,  a  territory 
under  the  Protectorate  of  Portugal,  and  territories 
of  other  chiefs  who  had  declared  themselves 
feudatories  and  tributaries  to  the  Crown  of 
Portugal. 

Portugal,  however,  was  not  claiming  the  whole 
of  Mashonaland,  but  only  those  territories  to 
which  her  rights  were  founded  on  priority  of 
discovery,  conquest  by  arms,  and  introduction  of 
Christianity — rights  fully  recognised  by  the  law 
of  nations.  The  depredations  of  Lobengula  in 
these  territories  were  alone  sufficient  to  coun- 
teract the  arrogance  of  that  Matabele  Chief  who 
was  now  claiming  to  be  the  lord  of  territories 
to  which  he  had  no  right  whatever.  There  is, 
however,  no  denying  the  fact  that  this  usurpation 
of  territories  had  served  the  Portuguese  right,  for  it 
was  their  own  fault  that  some  of  these  territories  had 
had  no  effective  occupation.  They  had  only  them- 
selves to  blame  for  not  having  definitely  settled 
the  boundaries  of  their  East  African  possessions. 

In  the  meantime  Glynn  Petre,  the  British 
Minister  in  Lisbon,  had  arranged,  on  the  30th 
October,  with  Barros  Gomes,  the  Portuguese 
Foreign  Minister,  a  delimitation  of  boundaries  of 
Portuguese  territories  in  East  Africa.  While 
these  negotiations  were  pending,  a    Portuguese 


A  Friends'  Quarrel         i87 

expedition  under  Antonio  Maria  Cardoso  had 
started  for  Nyassaland  to  confirm  and  extend 
the  work  already  done  in  that  region  by  the 
explorers,  Serpa  Pinto  and  Augusto  Cardoso. 
That  expedition  naturally  raised  a  cry  of  pro- 
found indignation  in  England.  Soon  after,  Serpa 
Pinto  had  started  with  another  scientific  expedi- 
tion. At  the  same  time  the  British  South  Africa 
Company  was  being  created,  to  which  a  Royal 
Charter  had  been  granted  on  29th  October  1889, 
with  general  powers  that  seriously  threatened  the 
interests  of  the  Portuguese  colony  of  Mozam- 
bique. It  was  now  high  time  that  Portugal 
should  define  her  colonial  rights  in  that  part  of 
Africa.  In  order  to  do  that,  she  had  to  enforce 
her  authority  in  the  territories  of  those  native 
chiefs  who  had  submitted  themselves  to  the 
Crown  of  Portugal.  That  alone  could  accom- 
plish the  ends  that  Portugal  had  now  in  view. 
In  these  days  Portugal  was  also  creating  the 
district  of  Zumbo,  comprising  territories  to  which, 
according  to  England,  Portugal  had  no  right. 

The  two  conflicting  parties  were  still  quivering 
with  the  excitement  aroused  by  these  mutual 
retaliations  when  Serpa  Pinto  carried  his  scientific 
expedition  into  the  land  of  the  Makololos,  a  war- 
like tribe  inhabiting  the  country  situated  to  the 


188      Porttigticse  Monarchy 

south  of  Blantyre,  the  original  home  of  the 
Universities'  Mission,  and  to  the  north  of  M'passo, 
a  town  on  the  borders  of  the  Shire,  where  resided 
a  Portuguese  Governor,  judges,  and  other 
authorities.  He  had  come  to  the  tribes  to  whom 
Consul  Johnston  **had  been  distributing  British 
flags."  Then  suddenly  the  horizon  darkened. 
When  Serpa  Pinto  arrived  at  M'passo,  he  learnt 
that  the  Makololos  were  not  willing  to  allow  his 
expedition  to  pass  any  farther.  At  this  juncture 
Serpa  Pinto  was  reminded  by  Buchanan,  the 
acting  British  Consul,  of  the  rights  of  protectorate 
that  he  exercised  over  this  people  in  virtue  of  a 
treaty  he  had  arranged  with  Melauri,  their  Chief, 
who,  strange  to  say,  *'had  the  superstition  of 
putting  his  own  mark  to  the  treaty,"  as  Buchanan 
himself  confessed ;  but  the  Portuguese  explorer 
had,  with  a  blunt  honesty  and  manliness  of  spirit, 
appealed  to  Buchanan  to  exercise  his  authority 
and  let  his  expedition  pass  through  those  terri- 
tories, but  all  such  expectations  were  strangely 
disappointed  when  the  acting  British  Consul 
informed  the  Portuguese  explorer  that  "  to  his 
regret  he  found  it  difficult  to  convince  the 
Makololos"  that  the  expedition  of  Serpa  Pinto 
was  purely  scientific.  This  resulted  in  the 
Makololos  attacking  the   Portuguese   expedition 


A  Friends'  Quarrel         i89 

on  the  8th  November  1889.  Serpa  Pinto 
defended  himself  and  inflicted  on  them  a  "  crush- 
ing victory,"  as  described  in  the  English  Blue 
Books.  Soon  after,  he  received  the  submission 
of  Melauri. 

,  After  this  a  cloud  of  complete  distrust  environed 
the  assurances  of  the  Portuguese  Foreign  Minister, 
and  no  policy  of  conciliation  became  possible. 
Lord  Salisbury,  when  informed  of  the  Makololos' 
defeat,  demanded  that  the  Portuguese  troops 
should  be  immediately  withdrawn  from  the  Shire, 
the  Makololo  country,  and  Mashonaland,  and  on 
nth  January  1890  he  sent  an  ultimatum  to 
Portugal.  Simultaneously  British  men-of-war, 
ironclads,  and  war  vessels  were  receiving  orders, 
some  to  leave  for  Delagoa  Bay  and  others  to 
proceed  to  Cape  Verde  Islands  and  the  Tagus. 
This  caused  a  painful  effect  on  the  well-wishers 
of  the  Anglo- Portuguese  alliance  and  drove 
the  nation  to  despair.  Portugal  found  it  impos- 
sible to  repress  her  complaints  and  conceal  her 
indignation. 

We  cannot,  however,  blame  Lord  Salisbury 
too  bitterly  for  that  vehemence  of  will  and 
persuasion  of  his  own  righteousness  which 
characterised  the  Mlti7natum  he  addressed  to 
Portugal.     It  was  clearly  a  difficult  task  for  Lord 


190      Porttcgtiese  Monarchy 

Salisbury  to  deal  with  the  tangle  of  interests  thrust 
into  his  hands  by  the  Scottish  missionaries  and  the 
party  that  represented  the  interests  of  the  Cape. 

The  Scottish  Universities'  Mission,  who  had 
their  establishments  at  Blantyre,  near  the  Shire, 
had  thought  it  their  privilege  to  give  the  lead  in 
African  policy,  and  had  pressed  earnestly  their 
local  interests  upon  the  attention  of  Lord  Salisbury. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Englishmen  representing 
the  interests  of  the  Cape,  convinced  that  there 
was  no  ally  whom  Great  Britain  could  discover 
in  Africa  more  likely  to  be  useful  to  her  than 
Portugal,  were  honestly  working  towards  a  policy 
of  co-operation.  This  difference  of  opinion  in 
England  was  so  strongly  marked  that  Johnston, 
the  Consul  at  Mozambique,  had  been  sent  to 
Lisbon  by  the  party  representing  the  interests  of 
the  Cape,  and  he  had  concluded  an  arrangement 
with  Barros  Gomes  by  which  Portugal,  in  exchange 
for  a  satisfactory  delimitation  of  her  colonies  of 
Mozambique  and  Angola,  was  willing  to  give  up 
her  claims  to  the  territories  near  the  Nyassa  and 
Zambesi.  But  the  efforts  of  Johnston,  who 
addressed  himself  with  vigour  to  the  task  of 
solving  all  difficulties,  had  been  in  vain.  The 
Scottish  missionaries  had  put  difficulties  in  the 
way   of  this   arrangement    which   acknowledged 


A  Friends'  Quarrel         i9i 

their  establisments  near  the  Shire  and  the  Nyassa 
as  being  in  recognised  Portuguese  territory.  Thus 
all  attempts  at  conciliation  had  failed,  and  the 
influence  of  the  Scottish  Universities'  Mission  was 
so  great  in  English  politics  that  a  British  Minister 
had  to  cast  his  foreign  policy  in  a  clerical  mould. 
The  ultimahcm  of  1890  was  therefore  the  natural 
outcome  of  a  succession  of  events  which  com- 
pelled Lord  Salisbury  to  abandon  the  traditional 
English  policy  of  conciliation  and  adopt  a  policy 
which  was  a  palpable  menace  to  Portuguese  ex- 
pansion, perhaps  even  to  Portuguese  independence. 
But  ere  long  Lord  Salisbury  gave  proof  of  a 
decided  dislike  he  must  have  had  for  unofficial 
interferences  in  diplomatic  relations  between 
different  countries.  It  was  highly  characteristic 
of  his  manly  nature  to  have  pronounced,  in  1897, 
in  a  speech  at  the  Mansion  House,  a  very  severe 
censure  upon  all  such  interferences,  and  have  said, 
**  If  you  keep  the  unofficial  people  in  order,  I  will 
promise  you  the  official  people  will  never  make 
war."  And  again,  in  1900,  it  is  recorded  that  he 
calmly  and  deliberately  thought  that,  "  though 
governments  may  have  an  appearance  and  even  a 
reality  of  pacific  intention,  their  action  is  always 
liable  to  be  superseded  by  the  violent  and 
vehement    operations   of  mere    ignorance.     We 


192      Portttgtiese  Monarchy 

cannot  be  certain  that  any  government  will  not 
yield  its  powers  to  the  less  educated  and  less 
enlightened  classes,  by  whom  more  and  more  in 
many  countries  of  the  world  public  affairs  are 
being  governed."  Such  were  the  very  suggestive 
words  of  Lord  Salisbury. 

But  the  ultimatum  did  not  solve  the  African 
question.  **  It  was  an  incident,  and  an  incident 
does  not  resolve  a  question,"  as  gravely  remarked 
Hintze  Ribeiro,  the  new  Foreign  Minister,  in  the 
speech  he  delivered  in  the  House  of  Peers  on  the 
9th  June  1 89 1. 

The  period  of  academic  discussion  had  now 
ended.  The  Progressista  ministry,  with  Barros 
Gomes  as  Foreign  Minister,  had  been  forced  to 
resign  and  make  room  for  a  new  ministry  of 
Regeneradores,  with  Serpa  Pimental  as  Premier 
and  Hintze  Ribeiro  as  Foreign  Secretary. 

The  chief  object  of  the  new  Government  had 
been  to  maintain  order  in  the  country  and  offer 
resistance  to  every  appearance  of  lawlessness. 
But  nothing  would  repress  the  popular  movements 
of  indignation.  Thus,  at  the  General  Election  that 
had  followed,  the  African  explorer,  Serpa  Pinto, 
was  returned  in  three  different  constituencies,  the 
city  of  Lisbon  placing  him  at  the  head  of  the  poll 
with  an  overwhelming  majority. 


•  T»    •   •      • 


e  J^o    c      c 


SERPA   PINTO 
(1846- I 900) 


m^ 


A  Friends'  Quarrel         193 

It  was  indeed  a  crisis  to  try  a  nation's  soul. 
The  suspense  was  trying,  and  the  worst  was 
naturally  looked  for.  The  ultimatum  had  given  a 
cruel  provocation,  and  all  Europe  beheld  with 
astonishment  this  impetuous  act  of  an  English 
minister  who,  perhaps,  was  happy  to  think  that 
he  had  thus  brought  a  country  to  sudden  reason. 
Diplomats  had  protested  against  it,  but  the 
territories  had  to  be  evacuated.  What  was 
Portugal  now  to  do  .^  She  could  not  go  to  war 
with  a  nation  whose  gigantic  squadrons  at  Zanzibar, 
Gibraltar,  and  the  Canary  Islands,  already  set  in 
motion,  had  revealed  her  great  naval  supremacy. 
A  great  power  against  a  small  nation,  with  neither 
allies  nor  a  navy,  were  heavy  odds.  There  was 
practically  no  alternative  for  Portugal  but  to 
submit  under  protest  and  appeal  to  Article  12 
of  the  General  Act  of  the  Berlin  Conference. 
Portugal  was  now  anxious  to  submit  the  question 
to  arbitration,  which  would  remove  all  cause  of 
misunderstanding  between  England  and  Portugal 
and  give  some  guarantee  for  the  future  tranquillity 
of  the  possessions  of  the  two  nations  in  Africa, 
and  Hintze  Ribeiro  had  attempted  to  carry  into 
effect  this  question  of  arbitration  in  the  right  way. 
He  had  referred  his  proposals  to  the  signatory 
powers   of  the   Act   of   Berlin   Conference    and 


194      Portttgtcese  Monarchy 

endeavoured  to  obtain  for  it  the  support  of  those 
powers.  He  had  also  instructed  Barjona  de 
Freitas,  the  Portuguese  Plenipotentiary  sent 
specially  to  London  on  that  occasion,  to  propose 
the  question  to  be  settled  by  arbitration.  But  Lord 
Salisbury  would  not  have  it,  and  had  objected  to 
it  on  the  ground  that  Article  1 2  of  the  General 
Act  of  the  Berlin  Conference  prescribed  mediation 
before  an  appeal  to  arms,  and  he  had  authorised 
his  representatives  in  Lisbon  to  make  a  declaration 
to  that  effect.  But  Hintze  Ribeiro  was  arguing 
that  Serpa  Pinto  had  only  subjected  a  people  that, 
till  then,  Portugal  had  considered  as  acknowledging 
her  sovereignty,  and  that,  by  the  fact  of  the  troops 
having  been  withdrawn  by  Portugal  after  the 
ultimatum  from  the  district  to  the  north  and 
south  of  Zambeze,  the  whole  question  had  assumed 
its  primary  phase,  which,  in  other  words,  meant 
that  there  could  be  an  appeal  made  to  Article  1 2 
of  the  General  Act  of  Berlin  Conference. 

There  was  no  reason  whatever  why  this  question 
should  not  have  been  submitted  to  arbitration. 
Nor  was  this  the  first  dispute  that,  in  modern 
times,  had  arisen  in  the  Dark  Continent  between 
England  and  Portugal. 

England  had  once  disputed  the  Portuguese 
rights  to  the  island  of  Bolama  on  the  Guinea  Coast, 


A  Friends'  Quarrel         i95 

made  over  to  Portugal  in  1607  by  the  King  of 
Guinala,  and  had  based  her  claims  on  a  concession 
made  to  her  in  1792.  But  the  contending  parties 
having  agreed,  on  the  13th  January  1868,  to 
submit  the  dispute  to  the  arbitration  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  the  question 
was  decided,  on  the  21st  April  1870,  in  favour 
of  Portugal. 

Later  on,  when  Captain  Owen  concluded  a 
treaty  with  King  Tebe,  by  which  the  southern 
part  of  Delagoa  Bay  was  ceded  to  Great  Britain, 
and  Portugal  protested  against  this  infringement 
of  her  rights,  it  was  mutually  agreed  to  let 
Marshal  MacMahon  settle  this  dispute,  and  the 
President  of  the  French  Republic,  by  his  judgment 
of  24th  July  1875,  ^^^  confirmed  the  historic 
rights  of  Portugal  over  Delagoa  Bay. 

The  proposal  made  by  the  Portuguese  Foreign 
Minister  was  therefore  of  great  consequence, 
and  such  proposal  could  not  be  received  with 
suspicion,  provided  the  Portuguese  Minister  was 
sincere  in  his  appeal  to  righteousness.  In  order 
to  finish  with  the  serious  divergences  that  had 
arisen,  and  were  bound  to  arise,  between  the  two 
countries,  arbitration  was  almost  a  necessity. 

Besides,  the  Portuguese  Government  had  to 
shape  its  acts  in  accordance  with  a  set  of  con- 


196      Portagtiese  Monarchy 

siderations  that  made  the  task  of  settling  this 
dispute  still  more  difficult.  To  begin  with, 
Republicanism,  which  had  been  quickened  by 
the  revolution  of  the  15th  November  1889  in 
Brazil,  which  had  resulted  in  the  dethronement  of 
King  Carlos'  great-uncle,  Pedro  11,  Emperor  of 
Brazil,  and  the  establishment  of  a  Republic  in 
that  country,  had  profited  by  the  confusion  into 
which  the  country  was  thrown.  Anyhow,  insulted 
nationality  was  a  pretence  for  an  attack  on  the 
Throne  itself. 

Then  there  was  the  pertinacity  with  which  the 
Portuguese  had  clung  to  their  traditions  that  were 
verified  and  confirmed  by  historical  evidence.  In 
a  letter  written  by  Luiz  Mariano  in  1624  at  Tete, 
on  the  borders  of  Zambesi,  there  could  be  found 
references  to  a  Portuguese  expedition  that  had 
got  so  far  as  lake  Nyassa.  The  original  of 
that  letter  had  been  in  the  Archives  of  Goa  in 
Portuguese  India.  The  Portuguese  explorer, 
Fr.  Manuel  Godinho,  a  Jesuit  who  had  crossed 
these  regions,  confirmed  in  his  book,  Relagao 
do  novo  caminho  que  fez  por  terra  e  mar  no 
anno  de  1663,  the  discovery  of  the  lake  Nyassa 
by  the  Portuguese,  **  who  had  discovered  it 
whilst  sailing  down  the  river  Shire."  He  had 
also   written    that    "a    fortress   was   created   at 


A  Friends'  Quarrel         i97 

Mombasa  in  order  to  dominate  that  kingdom, 
forts  were  built  at  Sena  and  Tete  (in  the 
Zambesi),  and  the  Kings  of  Pate  Quiteve  and 
Monomotapa  submitted  themselves  to  the  Crown 
of  Portugal."  They  could  also  evoke  the  proud 
memories  of  the  martyrdom  of  Gongalo  da  Silveira, 
and  point  out  the  ruins  of  the  Portuguese  Church 
at  Zumbo  and  convents  situated  between  Trans- 
vaal and  the  Zambesi.  And  so  convinced  were 
the  Portuguese  of  their  historical  rights  to  the 
region  of  the  Zambesi  and  Shire — rights  that  were 
confirmed  by  the  remarkable  Chart  of  Africa,  by 
J.  B.  Nolin,  offered  to  Louis  xvi  in  1775,  and 
even  by  the  testimony  of  the  famous  English 
explorer,  Richard  Burton,  who,  in  1873,  had 
acknowledged  that  Portugal  was  first  to  occupy 
the  region  of  the  Shire — that,  believing  that  the 
Government  was  conceding  such  rights  to  England 
in  the  overture  of  a  humiliating  peace,  they  were 
getting  more  and  more  desperate.  For  the 
moment,  therefore,  the  whole  duty  of  the 
Government  was  to  convince  the  nation  that 
the  aim  of  the  Portuguese  monarchy  was  not 
to  humiliate  the  country.  Hence  the  eagerness 
of  Hintze  Ribeiro  to  submit  the  matter  to  an 
impartial  tribunal.  And  it  is  strange  that  Lord 
Salisbury   himself,    referring    to    the   arbitration 


198      Portuguese  Monarchy 

system,  should  have  once  said  that  it  **  would 
be  an  invaluable  bulwark  to  defend  a  minister 
from  the  jingoes.  It  would  be  impossible  for 
them  to  accuse  him  of  having  trifled  with  the 
honour  of  the  country  and  with  surrendering 
substantial  advantages  if  he  could  say,  '  Well, 
I  submitted  the  matter  to  an  impartial  tribunal 
as  provided  by  treaty,  and,  unfortunately,  the 
decision  went  against  us.'" 

However,  those  who  cherished  the  not  un- 
natural belief  that  peace  and  tranquillity  would 
follow  the  negotiations  that  were  started  in 
London  were  cruelly  disillusioned.  The  first 
convention  following  the  ultimatuniy  was  signed 
on  the  2oth  August  1890.  By  this  agreement  the 
Portuguese  had  to  accept  the  free  navigation  of 
the  Zambesi,  give  up  the  kingdom  of  Barotsis, 
and  consider  the  provinces  of  Mozambique  as 
bounded  to  the  north  by  the  course  of  the  Ruo 
and  Shire  and  to  the  east  by  Mashonaland.  The 
Portuguese  Parliament,  when  summoned  to  dis- 
cuss that  treaty,  which  convulsed  the  nation  for  a 
few  months,  vehemently  opposed  its  provisions. 
There  had  been  no  reference  made  in  that  treaty 
to  Manicaland,  a  territory,  rich  in  mines,  that  had 
been  administered  by  a  Portuguese  Governor 
who    had    been    expelled    by    Mr.    Colquhoun, 


A  Friends'  Qtcarrcl         i99 

Administrator  of  Mashonaland,  and  that  territory, 
notwithstanding  the  protests  of  the  Portuguese 
Government,  had  been  usurped  by  the  Chartered 
Company.  Anyhow,  that  treaty,  that  was  the 
outcome  of  six  months  of  strenuous  effort,  caused 
the  immediate  downfall  of  the  Government. 

One  consequence  of  this  anomalous  condition 
of  affairs  was  that  it  exposed  the  monarchy  to 
its  enemies.  Suspicion  had  been  worked  up  to 
fever  pitch,  and  King  Carlos  had  a  stern  ex- 
perience in  finding  a  statesman  whose  qualities 
could  be  recommended  to  the  confidence  and 
regard  of  the  people.  The  King  eventually 
chose  General  Abreu  e  Sousa  to  form  a  ministry, 
that  succeeded  the  overthrown  Cabinet  in  October. 
The  new  Government  succeeded,  however,  under 
circumstances  far  more  propitious  than  had 
attended  the  two  past  Governments,  in  showing 
the  impossibility  of  accepting  terms  such  as  were 
prescribed  in  the  agreement  signed  in  August. 
This  resulted  in  a  Modus  Vivendi,  signed  on 
14th  November  by  Lord  Salisbury  and  the  Portu- 
guese Minister,  that  finally  led  up  to  the  definite 
Treaty  of  June  1891,  by  which,  besides  the 
geographical  delimitation  which  gave  Portugal 
a  part  of  territory  contested  to  the  north  of  the 
Zambesi,  provision  was  made  for  the  free  navi- 


200      Portagticse  Monarchy 

gation  of  the  Zambesi  and  the  Shire,  for  the 
transit  of  British  goods  through  Portuguese 
territories,  for  the  construction  of  railways  and 
telegraphs,  and  which  contained  a  clause  for 
"reciprocal  rights  of  pre-emption  in  case  either 
Power  proposes  to  part  with  any  territory  in  its 
own  sphere  of  influence."  Thus  ended  the  most 
dramatic  chapter  in  the  modern  history  of  Portugal, 
narrated  only  in  the  barest  outline. 


CONSTITUTIONALISM :   ITS  DEATH  PANGS 

KING  CARLOS  was  summoned  to  the 
throne  at  one  of  the  most  critical  moments 
of  Portuguese  history.  Never  before  had  a  king 
come  into  the  presence  of  such  a  great  national 
crisis.  Though  the  acute  period  of  excitement 
following  the  ultimatum  was  almost  over,  new 
causes  of  conflict  had  emerged.  That  was  almost 
natural.  The  ultimatum  had  reminded  the  Portu- 
guese that  the  nation,  weak  and  sinking  under  her 
burdens,  had  lost  her  former  prestige.  They  had 
borne  patiently  the  loss  of  their  commerce,  the 
gradual  disappearance  of  their  few  industries,  and 
the  fall  of  their  liberties  ;  but  this  fresh  wrong  had 
stirred  up  indignation.  All  this  had  fostered  an 
intense  spirit  of  Republicanism  and  an  aversion  to 
the  politicians  in  power.  A  proof  of  this  had  been 
afforded  by  the  serious  military  and  Republican 
rising  at  Oporto  on  the  31st  January  1890. 

The  change  that  had  to  come  over  the  Govern- 
ment had  indeed  to  be  a  great  one.     It  had  to 


202      Porttigticse  Monarchy 

modify  completely  the  character  and  tendencies 
of  the  monarchical  parties.  They  had  to  be  an 
inspiring  force  in  a  movement  of  political  re- 
generation in  which  there  was  work  to  do  for 
every  one  who  was  animated  by  noble  impulses. 
Yet  the  country  was  passing  through  the  phases 
that  are  invariably  evolved  by  half  measures. 
It  was  evident  that,  between  the  views  of  the 
monarchical  parties,  there  could  be  no  possible 
compromise.  One  might  say  more  than  this. 
Instead  of  directing  their  forces  to  a  moral 
purpose  and  moulding  circumstances  to  the  best 
advantage,  they  were  sacrificing  the  greater 
interests  of  the  nation  to  the  lesser  interests  of 
their  parties ;  and  with  such  elements  of  discord 
at  work,  King  Carlos  was  to  reign  in  Portugal. 

Finance,  it  has  justly  been  remarked,  is  the 
ultimate  test  of  administration.  The  grave  and 
general  upheaval  of  financial  affairs  in  the  very 
beginning  of  King  Carlos'  reign  must  have  come 
like  a  warning  to  him  whose  business  it  was  to 
watch  the  signs  of  the  times. 

The  ministry,  presided  over  by  General  Abreu  e 
Sousa,  that  was  in  power  had  had  tremendous 
financial  difificulties  to  cope  with,  and  it  had 
muddled  through  in  its  own  way.  The  ordinary 
expenditure   of  the   year    1890-91    was  fixed  at 


Constitutionalism  203 

;^9,76o,ooo  and  the  revenue  at  ^9,310,000,  but 
in  addition  to  the  deficit  were  added  ;^59i,72ofor 
extraordinary  expenses.  Naturally,  one  would  ask 
what  these  extraordinary  expenses  were.  Improve- 
ment of  the  defenceless  condition  of  the  country, 
construction  of  railroads  as  demanded  by  public 
opinion,  or  public  works  ?  No  such  thing.  We 
will  not  stop  here  to  question  the  insincerity  of 
the  Budget  as  sent  up  or  insist  on  the  recklessness 
with  which  public  money  was  spent. 

This  state  of  affairs,  however,  led  to  difficulties, 
of  which  the  outcome  was  that,  in  March  1891, 
the  Government  had  to  summon  Cortes  for  an 
extraordinary  session  to  decide  on  a  proposal 
with  the  object  of  consolidating  the  floating  debt. 
The  proposal  was  to  grant  the  tobacco  monopoly 
to  a  company  that  would  furnish  the  funds  needed 
for  the  conversion.  That  proposal,  though 
followed  by  the  resignation  of  the  Ministers  of 
the  Interior  and  Public  Works,  was  eventually 
voted. 

But  though  from  this  time  forward  the  Govern- 
ment showed  a  considerable  amount  of  legislative 
activity,  the  financial  situation  became  worse  than 
ever.  The  whole  situation  was  characterised  by  a 
stagnation  that  arrested  the  continuation  of  public 
works   and   left    the    business    interests   of    the 


204      Portuguese  Monarchy 

country  almost  in  a  state  of  chaos.  This  state 
of  things  was  such  that  monometallism  was 
renounced  by  the  authority  given  by  the  Banco 
Luzitano  to  make  its  payment  in  silver. 

The  country  sank  deeper  and  deeper  into  the 
bog  of  financial  difficulties,  and  the  Government 
had  to  make  the  most  strenuous  efforts  to  raise 
money.  The  Finance  Minister  had  been  given 
power  to  establish  a  monopoly  of  alcohol,  matches, 
and  petroleum  in  order  to  meet  a  deficit  of  half  a 
million  sterling  anticipated  in  the  Budget  voted 
in  June  of  that  year — a  measure  that  the  despair 
of  Portuguese  financiers  had  injudiciously  and 
oppressively  imposed  on  the  poorer  classes  of  the 
country.  To  cut  down  expenses  as  much  as 
possible  a  Royal  Decree,  signed  on  the  loth 
November  1891,  had  done  away  with  the  lega- 
tions at  Berne,  Stockholm,  Buenos  Ayres,  and 
Tangiers,  and,  in  addition  to  the  suppression  of  a 
good  many  consulates,  Portugal  was  to  be  re- 
presented at  Washington  and  the  Hague  by 
a  Minister  Resident.  But  this  renunciation  of 
diplomatic  and  consular  representation  abroad 
had  signally  failed  as  a  means  of  improving 
the  finances  of  the  country. 

A  still  more  striking  manifestation  of  the  great 
and  severe  crisis  through  which  the  country  was 


Constitutionalism  205 

passing  had  been  afforded  by  the  fact  of  Portugal 
having,  at  the  close  of  the  year  1891,  been 
forced  to  negotiate  with  her  foreign  creditors 
for  a  reduction  of  the  interest  on  the  external 
debt,  which,  of  course,  brought  into  distressing 
prominence  the  real  state  of  affairs.  The  distrust 
and  lack  of  confidence  in  the  Government  was 
such  that  the  foreign  bondholders  had  gone  so  far 
as  to  demand  the  administration  of  a  portion  of 
the  national  revenue  by  a  European  commission ! 
General  Abreu  e  Sousa's  ministry  was  replaced 
in  1892  by  that  of  Dias  Ferreira,  but  the  condition 
of  Portugal  showed  no  change,  except  for  the 
worse.  The  ministry  presided  over  by  Dias 
Ferreira  had  Oliveira  Martins,  the  great  historian, 
for  Minister  of  Finance.  Dias  Ferreira  had 
ample  work  before  him,  calling  for  the  exercise 
of  the  highest  qualities  of  statesmanship.  But 
things  in  the  country  were  coming,  or  had  already 
come,  to  a  strange  pass.  Into  the  vicissitudes  of 
that  remarkable  ministry's  life  it  is  impossible  to 
enter  here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  Oliveira  Martins, 
finding  himself  unable  to  meet  the  July  coupons 
of  the  external  debt,  suddenly  resigned,  and  Dias 
Ferreira,  who,  in  addition  to  the  Home  Office, 
took  up  the  Ministry  of  Finance,  finding  it  im- 
possible to  come  to  an  understanding  with  the 


206      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

Regeneradores  and  the  Progressistas  about  the 
provisional  arrangements  of  the  external  debt, 
tendered  to  the  King  the  resignation  of  the 
Cabinet  on  the  20th  February   1893. 

A  financial  situation  of  more  dangerous  possi- 
bilities could  therefore  hardly  be  imagined. 
The  first  trouble  that  arose  under  the  new 
Regenerador  ministry  presided  over  by  Hintze 
Ribeiro,  whom  the  King  had,  after  Dias  Ferreira, 
called  to  his  counsels,  was  the  addition  to  the 
tax  on  trading  rights  which  almost  provoked  a 
revolution  in  Lisbon. 

The  financial  strain,  which  was  carried  to  a 
point  at  which  an  even  more  serious  crisis 
appeared  imminent,  could  not  be  relieved.  In 
spite  of  the  surprise  like  that  in  the  Budget 
1896-97,  when  the  deficit  was  made  to  disappear 
and  the  Minister  of  Finance  hoped  to  achieve  this 
result  by  a  reduction  of  the  rate  of  interest  upon 
the  National  Debt,  the  Government  had  not 
succeeded  in  balancing  the  Budget.  All  it  had 
done  was  to  disguise  the  deficit. 

But  amidst  these  financial  troubles,  accompanied 
by  scarcity  of  currency  and  derangement  of 
domestic  exchange,  Portugal  had  to  experience 
other  troubles  in  her  colonies.  Gungunhana,  a 
Zulu  King,  had  raided  for  three  years  the  Portu- 


Constitutionalism  207 

guese  territories  in  East  Africa,  until  Mouzinho 
d'  Albuquerque  bravely  marched  into  his  camp, 
captured  him,  and  brought  the  Zulu  warrior  to 
Portugal.  Goa,  the  most  loyal  of  Portuguese  pos- 
sessions, had  also  witnessed,  in  1895,  the  revolt  of 
Maharatta  troops.  Unwilling  to  obey  a  ministerial 
decree,  passed  regardless  of  the  religious  prejudices 
of  this  race,  ordering  them  to  leave  for  Africa, 
they  had  left  their  barracks  and  occupied  the  fort 
Nanuz.  The  revolted  troops  achieved  a  brief 
ascendancy,  but  eventually  surrendered  to  a  better 
policy  that  was  to  gain  once  more  their  loyalty  to 
the  Crown ;  and  it  fell  to  Dom  Affonso,  the 
King's  brother,  under  whose  command  troops 
were  dispatched  from  Portugal,  to  achieve  the 
task.  This  revolt,  however,  derived  politically 
some  importance  from  the  circumstance  of  the 
special  appointment  of  Dom  Affonso  as  Viceroy 
of  India.  The  measures  of  true  impartiality  and 
real  conciliation  enforced  by  Dom  Affonso  did 
much  towards  lessening  the  bad  influences  of 
those  Portuguese  who  were  endeavouring  to  use 
that  revolt  as  an  argument  in  favour  of  their 
narrow  and  selfish  policy. 

It  was  not  therefore  to  be  expected  that,  during 
this  time  of  trial,  much  progress  should  have  been 
made  to  improve  morally  and  materially  the  con- 


208      Portagaese  Monarchy 

dition  of  Portugal.  In  these  circumstances  the 
chronic  discontent  of  the  Portuguese  assumed  a 
more  acute  form  than  ever.  They  were  becoming 
disturbed  at  the  hasty  and  ill-considered  manner 
in  which  all  legislation  was  being  developed. 
The  attempt  at  reforming  the  electoral  system  in 
1895  had  brought  to  light  the  fact  that  the 
ministry  in  power,  in  its  overzeal  for  the  Con- 
stitution, which  depends  for  its  life  on  the  fluctua- 
tions of  majority  and  minority,  had  cheated  the 
Constitution  itself.  Another  striking  instance  of 
this  misplaced  activity,  this  wish  to  secure  the 
patrimony  of  power,  was  afforded  by  the  request 
made  by  Hintze  Ribeiro  to  the  King  to  nominate 
a  certain  number  of  peers  for  life ;  but  the  King 
having  refused  to  grant  his  request,  the  Re- 
generador  ministry  presided  over  by  Hintze 
Ribeiro  had  to  resign  in  1897  and  make  room 
for  a  Progressista  ministry  under  Josd  Luciano 
de  Castro. 

Hintze  Ribeiro  had  resigned,  but  he  left 
behind  him  traces  of  his  dictatorship.  It  was 
therefore  only  right  that  some  of  his  dictatorial 
measures  against  the  freedom  of  the  press  and 
for  the  dissolution  of  commercial  associations 
should  have  been  repealed  by  the  new  ministry 
in  power. 


Constittitionalism  209 

But  already  the  position  of  the  new  ministry 
had  become  so  intolerable  that  Jos6  Luciano  de 
Castro  had  attempted  to  resign  when  Barros 
Gomes,  a  statesman  of  repute,  separated  from 
him — a  separation  which  broke  up  the  Govern- 
ment and  precipitated  a  crisis.  It  was,  however, 
Josd  Luciano's  good  fortune  to  be  able  to  form  a 
new  Government  within  three  days  of  that  event. 
But  circumstances  were  not  such  as  to  make  the 
Government's  position  a  very  easy  one.  The 
proposal  of  funding  one-third  only  of  the  existing 
debt  and  definitely  repudiating  two-thirds  and 
guaranteeing  the  existing  and  future  debts  by  the 
customs  revenue,  which  was  not  of  a  nature  to 
satisfy  the  foreign  creditors,  and  later  the  demand 
for  an  international  financial  committee  by  the 
German  bondholders,  had  impaired  the  authority 
of  the  Government  in  the  eyes  of  the  nation. 
But  the  South  African  incident  in  1900,  when 
Sir  Hugh  Macdonell  notified  the  Portuguese 
Foreign  Minister  that,  under  the  treaty  of  1891, 
the  British  Government  claimed  the  right  of 
passing  troops  through  the  Portuguese  territory, 
added  to  the  complications  of  the  times.  It  gave 
rise  to  some  of  the  most  bitter  controversies 
between  rival  parties  and  determined  the  resigna- 
tion of  the  Government  that  was  represented  to 
14 


210      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

have  assumed  undesired  responsibilities.  With 
the  overthrow  of  the  Progressistas,  to  which 
the  Regeneradores  had  largely  contributed,  the 
hopes  of  Hintze  Ribeiro,  the  new  Conservative 
Premier,  rose  high.  The  programme  of  the  new 
ministry,  presented  on  26th  June  1900  to  the 
Chambers,  had  insisted  on  the  absolute  need  of 
comprehensive  changes  in  the  colonial  system, 
promised  new  treaties  of  reciprocity  with  foreign 
countries,  and  struck  the  note  of  confidence  for 
reasons  too  sufficiently  obvious,  saying  that  it 
would  come  to  a  settlement  with  the  national 
creditors. 

Of  course  it  may  be  questioned  how  much 
these  promises  were  worth  to  Portugal.  Anyway, 
the  odds  were  hopelessly  against  the  success  of 
the  new  programme.  The  year  1901  found  the 
Government  most  suddenly  in  presence  of  a 
situation  in  which  a  policy  of  conciliation  was  of 
vital  moment. 

But  to  descend  from  the  general  to  the  par- 
ticular. The  Brazilian  Consul  at  Oporto,  Senhor 
Calmon,  had  opposed  the  entrance  of  his  daughter 
into  a  Portuguese  convent.  It  was  a  personal 
affair  which  concerned  nobody  but  the  father  of 
the  girl.  The  scandal,  however,  leaked  out  and 
assumed  such  proportions  that   it   culminated  in 


Constittitionalism  2 1 1 

an  indiscriminate  agitation  carried  by  extremists 
of  the  anti-clerical  party  against  all  religious 
congregations  in  the  country.  The  oldest  con- 
troversies were  raised,  and  there  was  a  revival 
of  religious  animosities  which  was  most  unfortunate 
for  the  country  as  well  as  disastrous  to  the  Govern- 
ment. Unhappily,  too,  the  conduct  of  the  mob 
was  destined  to  increase  its  difficulties.  Serious 
disturbances  took  place  at  Oporto.  The  Colleges 
of  the  Holy  Trinity  and  Holy  Family  were  pelted 
and  attacked  by  an  irresponsible  crowd,  which 
resulted  in  many  deeds  of  violence  and  in  some 
blood  being  shed. 

The  Government,  however,  fought  the  situation 
with  no  better  result  than  Don  Quixote  found  in 
his  battle  with  the  windmills.  It  proposed  en- 
forcing the  law  of  1834  as  to  the  congregations. 
Jesuits,  monks,  and  nuns  of  all  denominations 
were  ordered  to  disperse ;  but  the  spirit  with 
which  that  law  was  enforced  was  such  that  it 
did  not  excite  foreign  sympathy.  The  British 
Minister  in  Lisbon  protested  against  the  in- 
spection of  Irish  monasteries,  and  the  Spanish 
Minister  interfered  on  behalf  of  the  religious 
congregations  under  his  protection.  The  Re- 
generador  Government  had  therefore  to  abandon 
the  delusion  that  they  could  promote  the  welfare 


212      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

of  the  nation  as  a  whole  by  concessions  to  ex- 
aggerated claims  of  whatever  party  in  Portugal. 

But  the  weakness  of  this  Government  became 
especially  clear  when,  in  1902,  it  turned  its  atten- 
tion to  the  solution  of  the  exceptionally  complex 
financial  problem.  The  essential  feature  of  the 
situation  which  the  Government  had  to  face  was 
to  carry  on  successfully  negotiations  with  the 
foreign  holders  of  external  debt,  which  was  not 
beyond  the  range  of  possibility.  But  the  convenio 
disclosed  the  desperate  remedy  for  the  financial 
condition  adopted  by  the  Government.  The 
State  had  repudiated  the  full  obligations  of  the 
public  debt,  half  the  debt  being  cancelled,  and 
payment  of  three  per  cent,  being  restored  on  the 
balance. 

So  clear  and  evident  was  this  bankruptcy  that 
symptoms  of  profound  indignation  were  displayed 
in  the  various  parts  of  the  country  by  various 
groups  and  classes  of  population.  Even  the 
students  of  the  University  of  Coimbra  and  the 
Higher  Schools  of  Oporto  carried  their  agitation 
so  violently  that  their  leaders  had  to  be  rusticated. 

This  economic  ruin  led  people  to  believe  that 
the  country  could  not  rise  again  from  many  a 
year  of  bondage.  The  people, — illiterate  to  the 
extent  of  seventy-five  per  cent., — who  were  paying 


Constittitionalism  213 

to  the  State  more  than  their  due,  were  conscious 
of  the  fact  that  the  country,  crushed  by  an  ever- 
recurring  deficit,  was  forced  to  borrow  at  ruinous 
rates. 

Their  line  of  reason  consequently  involved  two 
assumptions.  The  one  was  that  the  Government 
was  administered  for  the  benefit  of  the  ruling 
classes  and  not  for  the  ruled.  The  second  was 
that  the  stern  logic  of  the  fact  was  entirely 
contrary  to  the  many  showy  enterprises  under- 
taken by  Governments  in  Portugal,  but  which 
had  little  chance  of  success.  Neither  assumption 
could  be  disputed  by  those  whose  opportunities 
had  allowed  them  to  observe  the  actual  condition 
of  the  country. 

The  two  legislative  Chambers,  the  Peers  and 
the  Deputies,  collectively  called  the  "Cortes," 
had  been  elected  since  1826  ;  but  the  Parliament, 
which  was  to  give  the  people  a  share  in  ruling 
their  own  destinies,  had  not  fulfilled  its  obliga- 
tions. The  parliamentary  life  may  be  said  to 
have  consisted  in  its  members  debating  abstract 
themes  with  great  eloquence,  thus  wasting  session 
after  session  in  stormy  disputes  and  declamatory 
nothings — talking,  as  it  were,  against  time ;  and 
in  the  last  few  years  its  actions  and  its  obstinate 
determination   to   oppose   any  scheme   on   party 


214      Porttigacse  Monarchy 

grounds  rendered  it  necessary  that  it  should  be 
dissolved  sometimes  yearly,  or  twice  a  year. 
There  were  men  of  note  and  of  ability  still  left 
in  the  Parliament,  but  its  vital  force  was  dying. 
Regarded  as  an  instrument  for  bringing  the  most 
decided  political  capacities  into  the  administration 
of  public  affairs,  the  Portuguese  Parliament  had 
been  a  failure.  The  Parliament  was  reduced 
to  a  name,  their  meeting  to  a  formality.  So 
deep  rooted  was  the  corruption  in  public  life 
that  even  the  number  of  Deputies  assigned  to 
the  Opposition  was  generally  a  matter  of  arrange- 
ment. The  political  parties,  therefore,  known  as 
the  "  Regeneradores "  or  Liberal  Conservatives 
and  the  "  Progressistas  "  or  Democratic  Liberals, 
to  quote  what  the  Times  said  in  a  leader,  "  neither 
regenerated  nor  made  progress."  ''They  made 
arrangements  between  themselves,  in  virtue  of 
which  they  shared  the  spoils  of  office  in  rotation 
— a  practice  so  notorious  that  they  were  known 
collectively  as  Rotativos,'' 

These  two  parties,  when  in  power,  had  identical 
methods  of  governing.  They  both  stood  re- 
sponsible for  the  bankruptcy  and  economic  ruin 
of  the  country.  The  State  had  twice  to  repudiate 
the  full  obligations  of  public  debt — in  1892,  when 
the  rate  of  interest  was   reduced  from   three   to 


Constittctionalism  215 

one  per  cent.,  and  in  1902,  when  it  was  proposed 
to  cut  down  by  half  the  nominal  value  of  the 
capital  of  the  three  per  cent,  debt  and  pay  three 
per  cent,  on  the  remaining  moiety.  This  is  not 
all.  For  ten  years — up  to  1902 — no  account 
had  been  paid  without  adding  to  floating  or  con- 
solidated debt.  But  one  of  the  salient  facts 
about  this  disastrous  condition  of  affairs  was 
that  the  Regenerador  ministry  that  was  in 
power  from  1900  to  1904  had  called,  without 
success,  during  that  period  no  fewer  than  four 
Ministers  of  Finance  to  solve  the  problems  of 
the  Exchequer. 

All  the  sources  of  national  wealth  had  also 
been  utterly  neglected.  Portugal  is  a  country 
with  immense  resources.  Possibly  there  is  not 
a  country  in  Europe  which  possesses  such  re- 
sources ;  yet  the  Government  had  shown  such 
small  aptitude  for  turning  them  to  good  account. 
The  production  and  cultivation  of  cereals  had 
been  so  much  neglected  that,  in  spite  of  the 
country  being  fertile  and  well  adapted  for  such 
cultivation,  Portugal  was  under  the  cereal  deficit, 
and  special  laws  regulated  this  rdgime,  the  pro- 
tection given  to  the  cultivation  being  such  that  pre- 
vented any  further  development.  The  agricultural 
depression   had   been   such  that  the  great  bulk 


216      Porttigtiesc  Monarchy 

of  population  in  1896  came  to  depend  for  their 
subsistence  on  the  138,000,000  kilogrammes  of 
corn  imported  in  that  year  of  destitution. 

The  wine  production,  on  which  Portugal  has 
so  long  depended,  though  it  suffered  much  owing 
to  the  destruction  of  the  vineyards  by  the 
phylloxera,  was  also  in  a  critical  state.  The 
ravages  oi  phylloxera  had  no  doubt  sent  up  the 
prices  of  better  qualities  of  wines.  But  the  want 
of  propaganda  abroad  and  the  competition  of 
foreign  wines  had  been  so  great  as  to  preclude 
the  Portuguese  wine  becoming  an  article  for  sale. 
All  the  advantages  which  the  Portuguese  wine 
possessed  over  other  wines  were  also  discounted 
to  a  certain  extent  by  higher  sea  freights,  diffi- 
culties in  connection  with  shipping,  and  the  absurd 
custom  regulations,  with  the  result  that  the 
merchants  of  Hamburg  adopted  the  expedient 
of  shipping  their  *'fine  crusted  port"  to  Portugal 
and  again  reshipping  it  to  England. 

The  necessity  of  technical  education  for  the 
development  of  agriculture  and  industries  was 
strenuously  insisted  upon  in  the  most  advanced 
countries,  but  Portugal,  in  her  political  excitement, 
had  forgotten  that  she  had  industries.  The 
reforms  of  the  industrial  and  commercial  studies 
which  Emigdio   Navarro,  a  great  financier,  sub- 


Constitutional  ism  2 1 7 

mitted  in  1889,  and  which  tended  towards  a 
revival  of  Portuguese  industries,  had  not  been 
proceeded  with  for  want  of  funds.  Thus  for 
years  manufacturers  had  never  been  allowed  to 
flourish  in  Portugal.  Meanwhile,  the  movement 
of  Portuguese  emigration  itself  brought  forcibly- 
home  to  the  nation  the  real  state  of  affairs. 
Emigration  had  increased  steadily  all  the  while. 
We  have  only  to  look  at  the  official  tables  of 
emigration  to  gain  an  adequate  idea  of  the  rate 
at  which  depopulation  has  proceeded,  which,  in 
proportion  to  the  resources  of  the  country  and 
to  its  capital,  has  been  appalling.  As  the  period 
of  general  depression  and  local  distress  became 
acute,  the  vast  exodus  increased  by  degrees. 
Thus,  in  1895,  the  number  of  emigrants  amounted 
to  44,200 — a  figure  which  exceeded  by  nearly 
15,000  the  number  of  the  previous  year.  The 
next  four  years,  however,  showed  that  the  number 
of  emigrants  fell  considerably.  But  it  was  only 
a  temporary  change.  In  1899  the  official  statistics 
gave  18,000  as  the  number  of  those  who  had  left 
the  country  under  the  necessity  of  seeking  another 
home.  But  from  that  point  the  tide  that  still 
flows  unchecked  rose  with  such  rapidity  that 
between  1 899  and  1 907  it  increased  as  follows : 
in  1 90 1    to    20,500,  in    1902  to  24,432,  in  1904 


218      Portagtiese  Monarchy 

to  28,595,  in  1905  to  34,220,  in  1906  to  38,685, 
while  in  1907  it  rose  to  41,950. 

Obvious  inferences  will  be  drawn  from  this 
simple  statement  of  facts.  It  was  not  the  case 
of  removing  a  certain  number  of  people  to  bring 
the  population  of  the  country  to  a  reasonable 
level.  Nor  will  any  one  suppose  that  it  was  an 
amputation  of  a  morally  damaged  population, 
which,  from  its  state  of  social  disease,  had  to  be 
performed  for  the  good  of  the  country.  The  fact 
was  that  Portugal  had  more  mouths  than  food. 
The  seasons  of  dearth,  the  fluctuations  in  trade, 
and  the  industrial  progress  that  was  indefinitely 
checked  had  condemned  the  labouring  classes  of 
the  country  to  a  chronic  pauperism. 

The  emigration  was  perhaps  the  result  of 
influences,  such  as,  for  instance,  an  urgent  demand 
for  labour  in  the  South  American  Republics, 
which  have  made  themselves  felt  over  the  greater 
portion  of  Southern  Europe ;  but,  taking  all  the 
facts  into  consideration,  we  can  scarcely  be  far 
wrong  in  asserting  that  the  causes  mentioned 
above  accelerated  the  tide  of  emigration  in 
Portugal.  Such  were  the  conditions  which  met 
the  eye  of  the  most  casual  observer  who  cared 
to  look  into  the  circumstances  of  national  life. 

The  people  could  not,  therefore,  be  expected 


Constitutionalism  2 1 9 

to  play  much  longer  the  part  of  an  unconcerned 
spectator.  The  serious  popular  rising  at  Coimbra 
on  the  1 2th  March  1903  caused  by  a  new  tax 
on  markets,  and  the  not  less  serious  disturbances 
on  1 6th  June  of  that  year  in  connection  with 
the  weavers'  strike  at  Oporto,  were  already 
symptoms  of  a  widespread  discontent  rapidly 
creeping  into  the  masses  of  the  country. 

The  existing  condition  of  things  could  not 
last;  a  crisis  was  inevitable.  In  1904  the  Re- 
generadores  who  were  in  power  found  themselves 
face  to  face  with  the  people  on  the  question 
of  the  tobacco  monopoly.  In  1891  the  State, 
when  raising  a  loan  of  ;^8oo,ooo  sterling  from 
a  foreign  company,  had,  in  exchange,  granted  this 
company  the  monopoly  of  tobacco  in  the  kingdom  ; 
and  this  concession  was  to  last  till  1926  ;  but 
the  State  had  the  right  of  altering  and  renewing 
the  contract.  The  Regeneradores  in  1904  were 
about  to  renew  the  contract  when  they  met  with 
a  very  strong  opposition  in  both  Houses.  The 
reason  was  that  another  company  of  match- 
makers was  competing  for  the  monopoly  of 
tobacco,  and  this  company  had  every  support 
from  the  Progressistas.  A  crisis  followed,  the 
Cortes  were  dissolved,  and  the  two  parties 
carried  their  party  battles  to  such  an  extent  as 


220      Porttigticse  Monarchy 

to  convert  the  whole  country  into  a  region  of 
strife  and  discord. 

The  Progressistas,  who,  on  the  King's  refusal 
of  Hintze  Ribeiro's  unconstitutional  request  to 
prorogue  the  Cortes,  had  been  returned  to  power, 
met  with  a  violent  opposition  in  the  Cortes 
when  there  came  for  discussion  the  Bill  which 
concerned  the  discharge  of  the  obligations  in- 
curred in  1 89 1  and  guaranteed  by  the  tobacco 
monopoly.  The  bitterness  of  political  animosity 
was  so  intense  that  a  decree,  signed  on  the  nth 
September  1905,  was  passed  adjourning  the  Cortes 
to  the  month  of  January  of  the  following  year. 
In  1906,  however,  when  the  Cortes  were  con- 
voked, Josd  Luciano  de  Castro,  the  Progressista 
Premier,  found,  to  his  great  disappointment,  that 
his  ministry  was  defeated,  which  compelled  him 
to  demand  a  dissolution,  which  was  once  more 
granted  to  him.  But  rightly  or  wrongly  the 
King,  a  few  weeks  later,  called  to  office  Hintze 
Ribeiro,  the  Regenerador  leader,  who,  if  I  may 
be  allowed  the  words,  had  the  task  of  appealing 
to  the  country  and  obtaining  a  fresh  mandate 
from  the  masses.  No  comment  can  add  much  to 
the  significance  of  this  fact. 

These  events  gave  the  Republicans  an  oppor- 
tunity to   strengthen    their   position,  and   in  the 


Constitutionalism  22 1 

first  elections  that  followed  Bernardino  Machado, 
one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Republican  party,  was 
elected  Member  of  Parliament ;  and  his  arrival  at 
Lisbon  gave  rise  to  very  serious  and  grave  events, 
which  even  caused  bloodshed.  This  intensified 
the  situation,  and  Hintze  Ribeiro  asked  the  King's 
permission  to  assume  dictatorship ;  but  the  King 
having  refused  to  grant  his  request,  the  ministry 
resigned. 

The  two  parties  had  proved  that  they  were  not 
adequate  to  meet  the  emergency.  The  country 
had  reached  so  extraordinary  a  crisis  that  the  last 
few  years  had  been  marked  by  breaches  of  party 
ties,  committed  by  politicians  in  the  presence  of 
emergencies,  in  which  the  forces  of  each  party 
had  been  strained  in  opposing  the  other.  Poli- 
ticians who  started  away  from  that  path,  which  was 
chalked  out  as  the  only  one  that  was  right,  were 
hustled  about  by  their  political  leaders  in  a  way 
that  was  disconcerting  to  their  self-respect.  This 
had  led  to  the  formation  of  the  new  monarchical 
parties  like  the  **  Regeneradores-Liberaes,"  under 
the  leadership  of  Joao  Franco,  formerly  a  Re- 
generador ;  the  ''  Nacionalistas,"  led  by  Jacintho 
Candido,  also  a  Regenerador ;  and  "  Dissentient 
Progressistas,"  led  by  Alpoim,  who  had  been  a 
Progressista. 


222      Portttgtiese  Monarchy 

Something  had  therefore  to  be  done  in  the  way 
of  reform,  or  else  it  would  increase  the  enthusiasm 
for  Republican  ideals  and  weaken  the  position  of 
the  Crown. 

Although  the  formation  of  the  Republican  party 
in  Portugal  dated  back  to  1870,  when  such  well- 
known  men  as  Latino  Coelho  and  Theophilo 
Braga  wrote  to  the  Partido  do  Povo  and  Elias 
Garcia  edited  the  Democracia,  it  had  acquired 
strength  as  a  party  in  1890,  when  there  arose  a 
dispute  with  England  over  boundaries  in  Manica- 
land  and  Shire  Highlands  in  Africa.  The  King 
unjustly  stood  answerable  for  the  adoption  of  half 
measures  by  the  Minister  of  the  Crown  in  that 
critical  situation ;  and  the  order  of  the  Garter, 
offered  to  King  Carlos  by  Queen  Victoria 
when  the  question  at  issue  had  been  settled, 
gave  the  Republican  accusations  a  superficial 
plausibility. 

The  Republican  party  in  Portugal  was  not  a 
power  in  the  country,  but  it  was  a  power  which 
was  the  dismay  of  parliamentary  and  municipal 
candidates  of  the  monarchical  parties.  In  1904, 
for  instance,  the  re-establishment,  after  two  years 
of  administrative  tutelage,  of  an  electoral  munici- 
pality in  Lisbon,  had  proved  the  strength  of 
Republicanism,  which,  though  suppressed  by  the 


Constitutionalism  223 

Government  on  the  surface,  had  made  consider- 
able progress  in  secret. 

The  much  abused  **  preventive  censure,"  seizing 
Republican  newspapers,  breaking  up  its  type,  and 
other  odious  measures  of  repression  adopted  by 
the  parties  in  power,  had  only  revealed  the  fact 
that  those  entrusted  with  the  government  of  the 
country  did  not  possess  that  quick  intuitive  genius 
which  seizes  the  occasion  at  great  crises  and 
adjusts  the  course  of  the  State  to  it. 

All  this  had  rudely  shaken  the  confidence  of 
the  country  in  the  wisdom  and  patriotism  of  the 
Rotativos.  Besides,  nothing  was  to  be  gained 
for  the  monarchy  by  the  King  hiding  himself 
behind  the  deceptive  promises  which,  every  year 
at  the  opening  of  the  Cortes,  he  in  his  speech 
from  the  throne  had  to  make  to  the  nation. 
Promises  to  develop  the  colonies,  improve  agri- 
culture, extend  commerce,and  balance  satisfactorily 
the  Budget  were  made  in  an  optimistic  tone  with- 
out causing  the  least  remorse  to  those  politicians 
who  had  got  into  the  habit  of  putting  proposals 
through  an  indefinite  number  of  stages  without 
any  likelihood  of  an  ultimate  decision. 

A  party  in  favour  of  sanity  and  economy  in 
public  administration  was  therefore  a  necessity  in 
Portugal.      In  these  circumstances,  it  pleased  the 


224      Porttigticse  Monarchy 

King  to  choose  Joao  Franco,  the  leader  of  the 
new  party  known  as  *  Regenerador- Liberal,"  and 
call  him  to  his  counsels. 

Franco  had  before  him  a  programme  that 
promised  to  appeal  to  the  ideal  aspirations  of  the 
country,  and  his  ascent  to  power  on  19th  May 
1906  seemed  to  have  marked  the  opening  of  a 
new  era. 

In  the  Parliament  he  was  immediately  attacked 
by  the  Opposition  for  the  choice  of  one  of  the 
ministers.  He  had  chosen  Shroeter  for  Minister 
of  Finance ;  but  it  happened  that  Shroeter  was 
not  a  Portuguese,  and  he  could  not  be  a  minister 
without  altering  the  Constitution.  The  bent  of 
Franco's  mind  was  thus  shown  right  in  the 
beginning  of  his  government.  This  tendency, 
thus  early  shown,  explains  how  little  he  cared  for 
the  Parliament. 

Many,  however,  expected  his  personality  to 
count  in  the  work  of  political  regeneration  he  had 
undertaken.  It  was  not  merely  the  case  of  new 
brooms  being  expected  to  sweep  clean  or  govern- 
ments effecting  impossibilities.  Franco  had  pro- 
fessed publicly  that  he  had  returned  to  politics 
with  his  democratic  instincts  strengthened.  To 
do  away  with  corruption  in  public  life  became, 
therefore,  his  first  duty.     Thus  for  the  time  he 


a  c 

c    c      e   c  « 

c      C  «   C    t,  c 

C      C        fc       c  t 


DOM   CARLOS,    KING   OF   PORTUGAL 

(1889-1908) 


Constitutionalism  225 

aimed  at  a  reorganisation  of  the  executive  where 
the  evil  of  corruption  was  not  accidental,  but 
settled.  He  proceeded  to  deprive  the  State 
parasites  of  all  imaginary  posts  so  infamously 
monopolised  by  them.  The  corruption  was  such 
that  a  gentleman  appointed  Minister  of  Portugal 
in  China  had  for  two  years  drawn  ;^2400  a 
year  without  ever  leaving  Lisbon.  Even  ladies 
were  found  to  be  receiving  public  money,  which 
had  for  years  been  paid  to  them  for  the  imagin- 
ary task  of  searching  female  travellers  as  they 
passed  through  the  custom  -  houses !  Franco's 
action  certainly  gave  an  impression  of  energy  and 
an  impression  of  efficiency. 

But  the  Government  for  the  first  three  months 
did  almost  nothing.  In  the  Parliament  it  met 
with  the  usual  opposition  on  the  part  of  the 
Republicans  and  Dissentient  Progressistas.  Two 
full  months  were  spent  in  political  discussions 
of  the  most  violent  character,  which  resulted 
even  in  discussing  the  person  of  the  King  and 
the  letters,  of  a  private  character,  which  the 
King  had  written  to  Hintze  Ribeiro  with  refer- 
ence to  the  events  which  happened  in  Lisbon 
in  connection  with  the  demonstration  got  up 
by  the  Republicans  in  honour  of  their  leader, 
Bernardino  Machado.  Soon  after,  the  strike  of 
15 


226      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

the  students  of  the  University  of  Coimbra,  that 
had  brought  the  students  and  professors  of  that 
scientific  establishment  into  serious  collision,  gave 
the  Opposition  a  better  opportunity  of  attacking 
the  Government ;  and  both  Houses  took  the 
students'  cause  into  their  hands.  Franco  at  this 
stage  thought  he  would  weaken  the  Opposition 
by  a  reconstruction  of  the  Cabinet,  and  he  offered 
the  Progressistas  three  posts  in  his  own  ministry ; 
but  Jos6  Luciano  de  Castro,  their  leader, 
refused  them  flatly.  At  the  General  Elections 
]os6  Luciano  de  Castro,  in  his  efforts  to  crush 
his  rival,  Hintze  Ribeiro,  had  agreed  to  an  alliance 
with  Joao  Franco  for  all  electoral  purposes ; 
and  the  result  of  the  elections  was  that  seventy- 
three  Franquistas,  forty  -  three  Progressistas, 
twenty-three  Regeneradores,  and  four  Republicans 
were  returned.  But  once  Franco  was  in  power — 
perhaps  to  give  his  ministry  a  complexion  that 
had  to  be  more  politically  youthful — he  ignored 
the  fact  that  the  game  the  Progressistas  were 
playing  had  not  yet  been  developed,  and  declined 
further  help  from  them.  These  events  gradually 
brought  Progressista  and  Regenerador  interests 
into  closer  approximation.  On  these  considera- 
tions it  is  intelligible  that  the  Progressista 
leader    should    have     refused    three    posts    in 


Constitutionalism  227 

Franco's  Cabinet.  After  this  Franco  tendered 
his  resignation  to  the  King,  which  was  not 
accepted. 

Franco,  however,  was  a  man  too  hopeful  and 
too  anxious  for  the  consummation  of  his  plans. 
He  presumed  that  no  good  could  be  expected 
from  submitting  any  further  questions  to  a 
vehemently  distracted  Parliament,  and  he  assumed 
dictatorship,  which  he  proclaimed  in  a  most  un- 
constitutional way.  The  Cortes  were  dissolved, 
and  Franco  announced,  through  the  Diario 
Illustrado,  the  organ  of  his  party,  that  the  Bills 
which  had  been  debated  but  not  passed  would 
nevertheless  receive  the  force  of  law.  He  thus 
virtually  disavowed  the  very  principles  which  he 
had  once  declared  to  be  essential  to  the  govern- 
ment of  the  country. 

The  representatives  of  the  people,  seeing  that 
the  liberties  of  the  country  had  been  attacked, 
made  an  appeal  to  the  King,  representing  their 
case  according  to  the  laws  of  the  land  and  by 
all  Constitutional  means.  Jos6  Luciano  de  Castro, 
in  the  name  of  the  majority  of  the  Council  of 
State,  asked  the  King  to  grant  him  an  audience 
to  present  a  protest  against  the  unconstitutional 
way  the  Cortes  had  been  dissolved.  But  the 
King,  little  as  he  was  prepared  to  tolerate  any 


228      Porttigttcse  Monarchy 

interference  with  the  policy  of  his  "dictator," 
refused  to  listen  to  the  advice  of  those  whose 
Constitutional  duty  it  was  to  advise  him.  He 
would  not  even  see  them  in  their  official  capacity. 
At  the  end  of  May  1907,  delegates  representing 
the  majority  of  the  House  of  Peers  and  the 
minority  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  asked  the 
King  to  allow  them  to  make  personally  a  repre- 
sentation regarding  the  state  in  which  the 
country  had  been  thrown  through  the  dissolution 
of  the  Cortes.  The  King,  however,  though 
he  consented  to  receive  them,  ignored  these 
claims  for  speaking  in  the  name  of  the  country. 
He  merely  undertook  to  inform  the  Prime 
Minister  about  their  grievances.  Soon  after,  a 
deputation  from  the  municipal  councils  called  on 
the  King  to  protest  in  the  name  of  the  rural 
population — a  deputation  which  the  King  pur- 
posely received  in  the  presence  of  the  Prime 
Minister.  In  June  one  hundred  and  three  muni- 
cipalities boldly  pressed  their  claims  for  a  voice 
in  the  matter  by  sending  in  a  protest  to  the 
King,  which,  however,  did  not  prove  successful. 
This  made  the  people  resort  to  other  means. 
Meantime,  the  press,  monarchical  as  well  as 
republican,  opened  a  vigorous  campaign  against 
the    Government ;    but    Franco,    who    was    too 


Constitutionalism  229 

impatient  of  difference  of  opinion  and  too 
doggedly  convinced  of  his  own  righteousness, 
censored  and  muzzled  the  press  wherever  adverse 
to  the  Government.  The  Constitution  seemed  so 
entirely  annihilated  already  that  it  could  hardly 
be  considered  an  obstacle  for  Franco  to  pass 
such  measures  that  could  only  be  justified  in 
extreme  cases.  These  measures  intensified  the 
situation ;  and  it  stood  to  reason  that  where 
the  Marquis  de  Pombal,  the  dictator  of  King 
Joseph  I,  failed,  Franco  could  scarcely  hope  to 
succeed  amid  the  movements  of  a  more  hopeful 
and  determined  generation. 

But  amidst  all  this  the  monarchy  was  anything 
but  strong.  The  Republicans  gathered  fresh 
strength  as  the  quarrel  between  the  Ministerialists 
and  the  monarchical  Opposition  became  acute. 
It  enlisted  adherents  to  Republicanism  every  day. 
Even  the  former  President  of  the  Chamber  of 
Peers,  A.  da  Cunha,  deserted  the  monarchy  to  join 
the  Republican  party. 

The  dictator  not  only  trampled  on  the  Constitu- 
tion in  every  possible  way,  but  he  even  com- 
promised the  King  with  the  nation.  King  Carlos 
had  to  declare  to  M.  Galtier,  who  represented 
the  great  newspaper,  Le  Temps,  of  Paris,  and 
who  interviewed  him,  his  determination  to  sup- 


230      Portagtiese  Monarchy 

port  the  dictator.  In  this  interview  the  King, 
taking  the  French  journalist  into  confidence 
regarding  the  State  affairs,  spoke  of  the  want 
of  character  in  Portugal,  which,  in  other  words, 
meant  that  the  nation  over  which  he  reigned  was 
dishonest !  Imagine,  then,  the  distress  of  mind 
which  ensued  almost  immediately.  The  indigna- 
tion that  raged  throughout  Portugal  when  Le 
Temps  published  the  interview  was  great. 
After  that  interview  people  were  at  a  loss  to 
understand  how  the  State  could  confound  itself 
with  the  person  of  the  Sovereign  and  the  authority 
of  the  State  centre  in  the  person  of  the  King. 
Here  I  may  be  allowed  to  quote  the  words  of 
a  great  Chinese  philosopher  who  said  **  that  the 
ills  besetting  mankind  arose,  not  from  man's 
neglect  to  do  what  is  necessary,  but  because  he 
does  what  is  unnecessary." 

King  Carlos  confined  himself  to  words,  but 
his  Premier  continued  to  act.  To  humble  all 
other  parties  monarchical  or  republican  seemed 
to  have  been  his  wild  dream.  Specially  anxious  to 
hold  in  his  hands  the  whole  political  and  adminis- 
trative life  of  the  country,  a  decree  had  been 
passed  postponing  the  municipal  elections,  and 
just  before  Christmas  a  decree  appeared  reform- 
ing the  House  of  Peers.     He  was  re-establishing 


Constitutionalism  23 1 

for  that  House,  whose  majority  had  protested 
against  his  dictatorship,  the  system  of  1826,  and 
had  gone  so  far  as  to  transfer  its  judicial  functions 
to  the  Supreme  Court.  Thus  the  rights  enjoyed 
for  so  many  years  by  a  political  institution  such 
as  the  House  of  Peers  were  set  aside  by  a 
stroke  of  the  pen !  Yet  the  facts  of  the  case, 
though  highly  complicated,  did  not  justify  any 
such  despotic  attitude.  But  Franco  had  to  be 
something  different  from  what  he  had  been  in 
the  past.  Though  with  a  mind  of  his  own  on 
the  subject  of  current  politics,  he  was  nevertheless 
at  heart  the  same  Regenerador  minister  of 
1894  who  was  the  right  hand  of  Hintze  Ribeiro, 
in  whose  acts  of  political  violence  in  pursuit  of 
political  ends  he  had  had  a  large  share. 

The  manner  in  which  Franco  dealt  with  the 
Civil  List  and  his  concessions  to  the  King  had 
also  been  followed  by  increased  discontent. 
That  King  Carlos  had  received  large  sums  in 
advance  from  the  Treasury  on  his  Civil  List 
had  been  made  public  by  the  Republicans.  This, 
of  course,  called  up  associations  which  were  in- 
consistent with  the  dignity  of  Royalty.  How- 
ever, the  King's  debt  to  the  Treasury  was  agreed 
between  King  Carlos  and  his  dictator  to  be 
;^ 1 54,000.     The  impolicy  and  injustice  of  such 


232      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

an  agreement  were  flagrant  and  exasperated  the 
nation.  ''This  transaction,"  to  quote  Martin 
Hume,  **was  open  to  question,  but  the  process 
by  which  the  royal  indebtedness  was  extinguished 
was  more  so  still."  ^  Not  the  least  curious  and 
suggestive  side  of  this  transaction  were  the 
following  facts  that  deserved  the  special  attention 
of  that  English  critic  :  '*  The  royal  yacht  Amelia, 
which  had  been  paid  for  by  the  nation  and 
maintained  as  a  vessel  in  the  Portuguese  Navy, 
was  assumed  to  be  the  private  property  of  the 
King,  and  its  value — ;^6 1,200 — was  credited  to 
him  when  he  ostensibly  transferred  to  the  nation 
the  vessel  for  which  it  had  paid.  The  balance  of 
the  indebtedness — ;^93,ooo — was  extinguished  by 
a  similar  process.  Certain  old  palaces  had  been 
for  years  utilised  for  the  public  service  as  offices, 
barracks,  and  military  academies.  For  these  the 
King  had  received  a  rent,  and  on  surrendering 
this  usufruct  for  the  future,  the  capitalisation  of 
the  same  was  assumed  to  be  equal  to  ;^93,ooo, 
whereby  the  balance  of  the  King's  debt  to  the 
country  was  declared  to  be  liquidated." 

This  brings  us  to  the  very  heart  of  the  matter. 
The  problem  was  not  so  much  cancelling  a  debt 

^  F/^<?  "  Portugal  from  1891  to  1908,"  an  additional  chapter  to 
Portugal,  by  H.  Morse  Stephens,  "The  Story  of  the  Nations  Series." 


Constitutionalism  233 

as  meeting  adequately  the  demands  of  the  Royal 
Household.  Franco  met  the  exigencies  of  the 
moment  by  adding  ;^32,ooo  to  the  King's  Civil 
List.  Thus  the  whole  annual  charge  on  the 
nation  was  ;^  137,000.  This  rather  hasty  decision 
excited  much  angry  criticism,  and  may  be  re- 
garded as  in  a  great  degree  to  have  contributed 
to  indispose  the  King  with  the  nation.  Against 
this  increase  of  King's  Civil  List  the  argument 
from  justice  was  at  its  strongest.  According  to 
the  dictator's  Budget  of  1907-08,  published  on  the 
29th  June  1907  by  the  Official  Gazette y  the  total 
ordinary  revenue  amounted  to  ^f  14,964,279, 
the  extraordinary  to  ;^268,333,  and  the  expendi- 
ture to  ;^i5,555»555>  of  which  ;^i5,025,03i  was 
classed  as  ordinary.  It  was  not  therefore  sur- 
prising that  the  nation,  conscious  of  the  deficit 
that  still  continued  and  the  fact  that  the  con- 
solidated debt  was  rising  every  year,  should  have 
considered  excessive  the  addition  to  the  Civil 
List,  done  without  parliamentary  sanction.  But 
Franco  contended  that  he  had  increased  the  Civil 
List  to  free  the  Sovereign  effectually  from  that 
influence  which  his  predecessors  had  exercised 
over  His  Majesty.  "  How  can  any  one  reproach 
me  with  so  just  and  necessary  a  measure  ?  "  were 
the  words  of  Franco  to  a  French  journalist  who 


234      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

had  approached  the  dictator  on  the  subject. 
"  Was  it  not  scandalous  to  see  our  King  driven 
to  run  into  debt  and  make  terms  with  all  parties 
in  office  ?  What  an  unworthy  sight  for  a  self- 
respecting  country  to  see  her  King. forced  to  shut 
his  eyes  to  every  abuse  in  order  to  get  enough 
to  live  upon  for  himself  and  his  family  !  "  ^  Such, 
however,  was  the  indiscreet  and  compromising 
language  used  by  Franco  to  justify  himself. 

This  state  of  affairs  could  not  last  for  any  time. 
Every  provocation  had  been  given  by  the  Govern- 
ment to  cause  turbulence.  The  dictator,  in  the 
month  of  January  1908,  had  issued  decrees  sup- 
pressing papers  and  imprisoning  those  who  were 
opposed  to  his  policy.  The  Diario  Popular, 
O  Correio  da  Noite,  and  O  Dia,  organs  of 
the  Regenerador,  Progressista,  and  Dis- 
sentient Progressista  parties  respectively,  were 
by  his  orders  suspended  for  thirty  days.  The 
Liberal  and  the  Paiz  had  also  met  with  the 
same  fate.  The  fortress  of  Caxias  and  the  State 
prisons  were  full  to  overflowing.  Alpoim,  the 
leader  of  the  Dissentient  Progressistas,  had  to 
take  refuge  in  Spain  to  escape  arrest  for  being 
implicated  in  a  conspiracy. 

^  "  The   First  of  February  in  Lisbon,"  by    Jean   Finot,   Con- 
temporary Review^  ^March  1908. 


Constitutionalism  235 

All  these  restrictions  on  the  press  and  public 
meetings  increased  the  unwillingness  of  the  people 
to  submit  to  Franco's  dictatorship.  But  the 
dictator,  with  a  recklessness  positively  criminal, 
was  enforcing  new  measures  of  repression.  Thus 
the  King  was  made  to  sign  a  decree  by  which  any 
political  offender  could  be  transported  to  Africa  at 
a  moment's  notice.  Imagine  what  would  have 
been  the  result  here  in  England  in  the  reign  of 
Charles  ii,  when  political  dissatisfaction  was  at 
its  height,  had  those  ministers  called  the  **  Cabal " 
been  given  the  power  of  transporting  every  person 
who  was  opposed  to  their  policy ! 

The  Diario  do  Governo  of  Saturday,  the  ist 
February,  published  the  decree.  But  this  law  of 
"public  security,"  the  most  arbitrary  law  Portugal 
had  ever  known,  was  too  glaring  an  attack 
upon  the  liberties  of  the  land  to  be  received 
in  silence. 

In  the  afternoon  of  that  same  Saturday  the 
King  and  Queen,  with  their  two  sons.  Princes 
Luis  Filipe  and  Manuel,  were  expected  to  be 
returning  from  Villa  Vigosa.  The  royal  party  was 
due  at  Lisbon  at  a  quarter-past  four,  but,  owing  to 
a  slight  breakdown  on  the  railway  at  Casa  Branca, 
the  ferry-boat  Dom  Luiz,  in  which  the  King 
and    his    family   crossed    from    Barreiro    to    the 


236      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

Terreiro  do  Pa90,  did  not  get  to  the  landing- 
place  till  after  five. 

On  leaving  the  boat  the  Royal  Family  was  met 
by  the  members  of  the  Cabinets  and  Court 
dignitaries.  King  Carlos  seems  to  have  had  a 
presentiment  of  what  was  coming  a  little  later. 
He  asked  Franco  if  it  was  safe  for  him  and  his 
family  to  drive  through  the  streets  of  Lisbon. 
But  the  dictator  spoke  so  confidently  that  the 
King  relied  more  or  less  on  the  personal  pledge 
given  by  his  minister  for  the  safety  of  the  Royal 
Family.  So  far  from  taking  the  ordinary  pre- 
cautions, Franco  even  allowed  the  King  to  enter, 
with  the  Queen  and  the  Princes,  a  two-horse 
open  carriage  that  was  to  drive  them  to  the 
Necessidades  Palace. 

As  usual,  crowds  lined  the  royal  route ;  but 
amongst  them  there  were  some  political  fanatics 
who  had  come  under  the  pretext  of  looking  at  the 
King,  but  in  reality  to  imbrue  their  hands  in 
royal  blood.  They  carried  loaded  firearms,  which 
were  not  noticed  by  the  crowd  or  the  police  until 
the  royal  carriage  was  about  to  turn  the  corner 
of  the  Pra9a  do  Commercio  up  the  street  of  the 
Arsenal,  when  a  young  man  jumped  up  behind 
the  vehicle  and  fired  a  revolver,  hitting  King 
Carlos  in   the  left  side  of  the  neck.     Seizing  a 


Constitutionalism  237 

bouquet  presented  to  her  a  few  moments  before, 
the  Queen  vainly  endeavoured  to  prevent  the 
assassin  from  again  firing  by  striking  him  in  the 
face  with  the  flowers.  In  spite  of  this  courageous 
attempt,  the  murderer  succeeded  in  pulling  the 
trigger  a  second  time,  mortally  wounding  the 
King.  A  struggle  ensued,  in  the  course  of  which 
the  assassin  was  killed  by  a  police  bullet.  In  the 
confusion  a  tall,  black-bearded  man  sprang  from 
behind  the  pillars  of  the  arcade  of  the  Ministry  of 
the  Interior  and,  pulling  a  gun  from  under  his 
cloak,  leapt  towards  the  royal  carriage  and  fired 
at  the  Crown  Prince,  who,  notwithstanding  that 
the  Queen  Mother  heroically  interposed  her 
own  person  to  save  him,  fell,  struck  by  two 
bullets,  one  in  the  face  and  the  other  in  the 
breast.  The  assassin  was  about  to  fire  another 
shot  when  the  police  at  once  dispatched  him. 
He  was  afterwards  proved  to  be  a  certain  Buiga, 
an  ex-sergeant  of  cavalry  and  dismissed  school 
teacher. 

More  shots  were  fired,  one  of  them  slightly 
wounding  Prince  Manuel's  arm.  When  the 
carriage  was  driven  into  the  Arsenal,  the  King 
was  dead  and  the  Crown  Prince  died  a  few 
moments  after. 

The  policy  of  Joao  Franco,  which  must  be  held 


238      Porttigtcese  Monarchy 

to  have  contributed  to  bring  about  the  events 
which  culminated  in  a  tragedy,  was  thus  brought 
to  nought.  Dictatorship  was  no  doubt  a  necessity 
for  Portugal,  but  it  had  to  be  assumed  by  a 
statesman  of  great  prestige  ;  and  great  men  are 
not  accidents,  and  great  works  are  not  accom- 
plished in  a  few  days.  The  dictatorship  of  Franco 
would  have  settled  the  affairs  of  the  Government 
rightly  had  Franco  not  forsaken  many  principles 
which  he  intended  to  preserve  in  his  choice  of 
means  in  working  out  the  end,  and  had  not  many 
of  his  difficulties  been  of  his  own  creation. 

The  forward  policy  as  practised  by  Franco  had 
erred  not  so  much  in  its  aims  as  in  its  methods. 
Instead  of  taming  the  spirit  of  revolution  and 
converting  it  to  his  own  purposes,  Franco,  to 
use  the  very  words  he  spoke  in  an  interview 
he  gave  to  a  well-known  French  journalist,  **  was 
provoking  manifestations  in  order  to  test  the 
feelings  of  the  people."  These  utterances  supply 
a  key  to  the  events  which  led  to  the  Lisbon 
tragedy. 

Although  Franco  is  far  from  standing  in  the 
same  light  as  other  European  dictators,  he  could 
not  even  justify  his  dictatorship  by  saying  in  the 
words  of  Cromwell :  *'  I  did  out  of  necessity 
undertake  the  business,  not  so  much  out  of  hope 


Constitutionalism  239 

of  doing  any  good  as  out  of  a  desire  to  prevent 
mischief  and  evil."  The  assassination  of  the 
King  and  the  Crown  Prince  stands  as  a  proof  of 
the  political  mistakes  committed  by  Franco,  which 
the  country  cannot  easily  forget  or  forgive. 


XI 

MEN  AND  PRINCIPLES 

TH  E  assassination  of  the  King  and  the  Crown 
Prince — a  tragedy  which  turned  the  better 
elements  of  all  countries  against  the  revolution- 
aries— discredited  the  country  before  the  eyes  of 
the  world.  But  with  the  tragic  event  vanished 
eighteen  years  of  experience,  and  there  mounted 
the  throne  a  young  king  with  no  experience 
whatever,  who  had  therefore  to  express  his 
hopes  that  his  counsellors  would  aid  him  to 
fulfil  the  duties  of  a  Constitutional  monarch. 

The  young  King,  presiding  at  the  first  Council 
of  State,  said  :  **  I  am  without  knowledge  and 
experience,  and  I  place  myself  in  your  hands, 
counting  on  your  patriotism  and  wisdom." 
Interpret  those  words  how  you  will,  they 
speak  volumes  as  to  the  spirit  in  which  King 
Manuel  ii  ascended  the  throne.  They  show  a 
young  King  with  a  goodwill  to  contribute  some- 
thing of  value   towards  the   solution  of  a    con-. 

fessedly  difficult  crisis. 

040 


c    -c  c       c 


c    c      ,C    c" 


<^V    Jf/f  \c^c       c    c^ 


c  c     «.,  c 


and 


JOAO   FRANCO,    "THE   DICTATOR 


iM4 


Men  and  Principles        241 

Soon  after  his  accession  to  the  throne  King 
Manuel  ii  published  a  general  amnesty  in  favour 
of  all  political  prisoners  and  abolished  dictator- 
ship. On  7th  February,  the  day  before  the 
funeral  of  King  Carlos  and  the  Crown  Prince, 
all  political  prisoners  under  detention  were  set 
free,  and  the  dictatorial  decrees  of  the  20th  June, 
the  2ist  November  1907,  and  the  31st  January 
1908  were  revoked.  The  decree  of  the  20th  June 
was  the  one  that  had  put  the  liberty  of  the 
press  at  the  mercy  of  administrative  authorities, 
and  that  of  the  21st  November  had  empowered 
the  juiz  da  instrucfdo  criminal  to  decide  all 
political  crimes.  The  third  decree — and  the  most 
arbitrary  of  all — was,  of  course,  that  of  the 
31st  January  1908,  by  which  the  Government 
could  transport  to  Africa  or  expel  from  the 
kingdom  any  political  offender.  The  decrees 
increasing  the  King's  Civil  List  and  reorganising 
the  House  of  Peers  were  also  repealed. 

The  municipal  councils  that  had  been  sup- 
pressed by  the  dictator  were  restored,  and  the 
so-called  administration  commissions  appointed 
by  Franco  were  dissolved.  It  was,  of  course, 
only  right  that  the  dictatorship  which  had  dis- 
turbed all  sources  of  national  tranquillity  should 

have   been   repealed,  and  it   was  next  in  order 
16 


242      Porttcgtiese  Monarchy 

and  equal  in  importance  that  most  of  the 
political  prisoners  who  had  withstood  the  oppres- 
sive measures  of  the  dictator  should  have  been 
released. 

The  choice  of  a  Ministry  of  Appeasement  was 
also  of  no  small  importance  to  the  monarchy, 
and  Vice- Admiral  Ferreira  d'  Amaral  was  charged 
to  form  a  Monarchist  Coalition  Ministry.  All 
the  leaders  of  the  Monarchist  parties,  on  whose 
advice  the  King  was  now  acting,  had  supported 
the  idea  and  promised  to  sink  all  differences  to 
work  in  a  movement  of  political  regeneration. 
Thus  there  was  no  difficulty  in  forming  a 
Ministry  of  Concentration,  which  was  presided 
over  by  Ferreira  d'  Amaral,  who  chose  for  him- 
self the  post  of  Minister  of  Interior,  the  other 
Cabinet  posts  being  distributed  as  follows  : — 

Campos  Henriques        .  Minister  of  Justice. 

Wenceslau  Lima  .        .  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs. 

SebastiIo  Telles  .  Minister  of  War. 

ESPREGUEIRA  .         .         .  Minister  of  Finances. 

AuGUSTO  Castilho         .  Minister   of   Marines    and 

Colonies. 

Calvet  de  Magalhaes  Minister  of  Public  Works. 

But  true  political  amelioration  could  be  obtained 
only  by  establishing  a  truly  representative 
Government.  A  new  change  had  therefore  to 
come   over    the    spirit    of    parliamentary   repre- 


Men  and  Principles        243 

sentation.  A  restoration  of  the  rights  of  free 
election  was  a  preliminary  indispensable  to  any 
reform.  **  The  value  of  the  election,"  to  quote 
the  very  appropriate  words  of  Guizot,  "  lies  in 
its  proceeding  from  the  elector,  in  its  being  a 
true  choice  on  his  part — that  is  to  say,  an  act 
of  judgment  and  of  will."^  But  the  Portuguese 
politicians  had  to  be  something  different  from 
what  they  had  been  hitherto.  The  scandalous 
events  which  happened  in  connection  with  the 
General  Election  held  on  the  5th  April  were 
a  flagrant  example  of  that  inconsistency  of 
character  and  absence  of  definite  political  aims 
so  predominant  in  Portuguese  politics. 

The  result  of  the  elections  was  that  sixty-one 
Regeneradores  and  fifty-nine  Progressistas  were 
returned  as  members  of  the  new  Parliament. 

Besides  these,  there  had  been  elected  seven 
Republicans,  three  Nacionalistas,  and  seven 
Dissentient  Progressistas  led  by  Alpoim,  who 
was  said  to  have  been  implicated  in  the  revolu- 
tionary movement  of  the  28th  January  1908. 
But  the  amusing  feature  of  this  new  Parliament 
was  that  there  were  seventeen  members  who, 
as   if  they   were    clearing   themselves   from    all 

^  Vide  History  of  the  Origins  of  Representative  Government^ 
ii.  247. 


244      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

imputation  of  dishonesty  or  selfishness,  were 
calling  themselves  "  Amaralistas." 

The  new  Cortes  had  hardly  met  when 
the  first  trouble  arose  under  the  new  ministry. 
The  advances  made  in  the  late  reign  by  the 
Treasury  to  the  King's  Civil  List  was  the 
theme  of  a  discussion  that  became  so  violent 
that  the  storm  that  was  brought  to  light  quickly 
convinced  the  young  King  that  there  was  danger 
ahead.  With  an  honesty  that  did  honour  to  the 
young  monarch,  he  caused  the  Diario  de  NoticiaSy 
a  newspaper  with  a  large  circulation,  to  publish 
the  list  of  sums  advanced  by  the  Treasury  to 
the  Royal  House.  This  entirely  altered  the 
aspect  of  affairs.  It  was  seen  that  since  1830 
all  monarchical  parties  had  behaved  alike.  Thus 
the  question  of  the  advances  made  by  the 
Treasury  could  now  no  longer  be  made  a 
matter  of  caprice  to  be  taken  up  or  put  aside 
according  to  the  convenience  of  the  historical 
parties. 

The  task  of  reconstructing  the  political  institu- 
tions of  the  country  was  therefore  heavier  than 
any  other  that  could  be  laid  upon  Portuguese 
politicians,  and  its  weight  was  aggravated  by 
the  fact  that  the  Parliament  which  had  to  bear 
it  was  a  Parliament  without  a  purpose. 


Men  and  Principles        245 

Such  was  the  aspect  of  politics  under  the 
influence  of  a  Ministry  of  Appeasement  that, 
endangered  by  the  defection  of  Julio  Vilhena, 
the  Regenerador  leader,  had  to  resign  on 
1 6th  December  1908. 

The  resignation  of  Amaral  marked  a  crisis  of 
tremendous  moment  to  the  Portuguese  monarchy. 
He  was  succeeded  by  Campos  Henriques,  the 
Minister  of  Justice  in  Amaral's  ministry,  who 
had  now  to  form  a  new  Ministry  of  Concentra- 
tion. But  the  new  ministry,  unable  to  press 
forward  a  definite  political  programme,  had  to 
appeal  to  the  Council  of  State  to  postpone  the 
opening  of  the  session  from  2nd  January  till 
28th  February.  Never  was  a  situation  more 
complicated ;  never,  I  should  think,  more  un- 
certain. The  postponement  of  the  meeting  of 
the  Cortes  not  only  led  to  a  meeting  of  protest, 
held  on  22nd  January  by  the  Republican  party, 
but  it  gave  rise  to  such  unreasonable  excite- 
ment and  public  controversy  in  the  monarchical 
ranks  that  King  Manuel  had  to  summon  to 
the  Palace  the  leaders  of  the  monarchical 
parties.  It  was  indeed  tragical!  It  was  a 
touching  spectacle,  especially  to  those  who 
knew  how  it  would  end.  A  young  king, 
anxious   to  work  for   the  good  of  his   country, 


246      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

but  appealing  in  vain  to  the  good  sense  and 
patriotism  of  his  supporters ! 

Thus  all  the  prospects  of  the  monarchical 
cause  were  marred  by  divided  and  jarring 
counsels.  It  became  evident  that  the  two 
historical  parties,  the  Progressistas  and  the 
Regeneradores,  were  not  willing  to  surrender 
the  supremacy  they  had  held  for  so  many 
years ;  and  the  new  parties — and  they  were 
many — were  also  unwilling  to  level  the  barrier 
which  divided  them  from  others.  The  country 
shall  be  saved  by  us  or  **  not  at  all,"  seemed 
to  have  been  the  idea  with  which  each  and 
every  one  of  the  monarchical  parties  was 
possessed.  And  "  pride  goeth  before  destruction, 
and  a  haughty  spirit  before  a  fall." 

The  session  was  opened  on  ist  March.  The 
debates  were  full  of  accusations,  abuse,  and  re- 
criminations.    Even  duels  were  fought. 

But  the  situation  remained  one  of  peril. 

And  to  make  matters  worse,  the  treaty  signed 
on  5th  March,  by  which  the  Delagoa  Bay  Railway 
and  the  port  of  Lourengo  Marques  became 
attached  to  the  systems  of  the  South  African 
Union,  created  further  difficulties  to  the  Govern- 
ment. That  agreement  was  looked  upon  as  a 
needless  sacrifice  of  Portuguese  interests  in  Africa. 


Men  and  Principles        247 

It  supplied  the  Opposition  with  an  unequalled 
excuse  for  carrying  on  an  agitation  throughout 
the  country. 

Thus  the  situation  of  the  Campos  Henriques 
ministry  having  become  immensely  complicated, 
the  Cabinet  had  to  make  room  for  a  new 
ministry,  formed  on  nth  April,  with  General 
Sebastiao  Telles  as  Prime  Minister  and  Minister 
of  War. 

But  ''this  pilot  who  was  to  weather  the 
storm  "  tendered  his  resignation  after  three  weeks' 
experience. 

In  these  circumstances  Wenceslau  Lima  be- 
came Prime  Minister  at  the  head  of  what  was 
called  a  Cabinet  "  extrapartidario,"  this  being 
thought  the  only  way  to  avoid  a  dissolution  of 
Cortes.  But  the  refractory  spirit  of  the  Portu- 
guese Parliament  would  not  endure  such  a 
change,  with  the  result  that  the  ministry,  in 
a  constant  dread  of  downfall,  lived  from  hand 
to  mouth. 

Things  and  persons  were  now  beginning  to  be 
seen  in  correct  perspective.  It  was  proved  that 
it  was  in  vain  to  hope  for  the  co-operation  of 
the  monarchical  parties  in  a  movement  of  political 
regeneration — a  movement  so  imperative  in  the 
interests   of  the    nation.     A   king  who,  at   this 


248      Porttigtiese  Monarchy 

decisive  hour,  could  have  played  the  part  of  a 
king  might  have  changed  the  whole  course  of 
events  that  were  to  follow.  The  time  was  come 
*'to  set  the  King  above  guardianship."  Mettre 
le  Roy  hors  de  page — a;phrase  applied  to  Louis  xi. 
King  Manuel  had  therefore  to  discover  an  honest 
man  and  give  him  a  free  hand  in  Portuguese 
affairs.  It  was  the  only  way  to  untie  or  cut  the 
Gordian  knot  of  tangled  politics  in  Portugal. 
He  might  have  failed  in  his  patriotic  attempt 
to  destroy  the  political  activities  concentrated  in 
the  hands  of  a  few  cliques.  But  the  sober 
opinion  of  the  country — the  opinion  which  is  not 
led  or  misled  by  mere  demagogic  clamour  or 
journalistic  charlatanism — would  have  done  justice 
to  the  King.  He  would  have  certainly  revived 
in  many  the  decayed  instincts  of  loyalty  to  the 
Throne.  And  history  would  have  at  any  rate 
accredited  him  with  an  honest  and,  perhaps,  last 
effort  to  redress  the  balance  of  power  between 
himself  and  his  subjects.  But  King  Manuel 
lacked  good  counsel.  The  opportunity,  at  all 
events,  was  lost. 

In  December  1909  the  King  called  to  power 
a  Progressista  ministry  under  Beirao,  which 
held  office  for  six  months.  This  return  to  the 
old  and  vicious  system  of  *' rotativismo "  struck 


Men  and  Principles        249 

the  Portuguese  monarchy  with  moral  impotence 
to  stem  the  rising  tide  of  revolution  against 
the  Throne. 

In  such  a  strait  the  regime  also  found  itself 
face  to  face  with  the  people  on  the  scandals  of 
the  **Credito  Predial,"  in  which  were  involved 
the  names  of  some  of  the  prominent  politicians 
in  both  historical  parties.  The  mass  of  evidence 
supplied  by  the  Republican  party  could  not  be 
pooh-poohed  or  explained  away.  The  members 
of  the  Financial  Board  of  this  Bank  were  accused 
of  embezzlement.  Although  the  Credito  Predial 
had  very  liberally  paid  eight  per  cent,  to  the 
shareholders,  its  administration  had  not  been 
altogether  so  gracious.  It  had,  for  fifteen  years, 
been  paying  dividends  out  of  capital.  Cancelled 
shares,  valued  at  five  million  francs,  had  been  re- 
issued and  put  again  into  circulation.  Accounts 
were  found  to  have  been  falsified.  Thus  an 
interested  clique,  after  deliberately  ruining  the 
finances  of  the  nation,  had  wrecked  this  Bank 
founded  in  1864.  But,  strange  coincidence,  when 
the  whole  fraud  was  disclosed,  Jos6  Luciano  de 
Castro  was  the  Governor  of  the  Credito  Pre- 
dial. In  the  arena  of  national  affairs  this 
veteran  leader  of  the  Progressistas,  who  were 
now  in  power,  had  been  a  prominent  figure  for 


250      Portagtiese  Monarchy 

over  half  a  century.  The  most  serious  charges 
were  made  against  this  public  man.  He  had 
therefore  to  be  tried  and,  if  found  guilty,  to  be 
arrested,  banished,  or  imprisoned.  Yet,  in  spite 
of  all  this,  the  optimism  of  Jose  Luciano  de 
Castro  and  his  followers  was  unshaken.  The 
position  of  the  Progressista  ministry  under 
Beirao,  however,  was  shaken ;  but,  worse  still,  the 
cause  of  the  monarchy  and  of  law  and  order 
was  also  considerably  damaged.  This  was  the 
real  state  of  affairs  when  King  Manuel  was 
riding  in  the  great  procession  of  kings  who  were 
accompanying,  to  their  resting-place,  the  remains 
of  the  great  "Peacemaker." 

On  his  return  to  Lisbon,  King  Manuel  was 
asked  by  Beirao  to  authorise  the  dissolution 
of  the  Cortes.  But  the  King  called  the  Re- 
generadores  under  Teixeira  de  Sousa  and  gave 
the  new  Premier  a  special  dissolution,  which  he 
had  already  denied  to  the  Progressistas.  This 
action  on  the  part  of  the  King  took  the  monarchi- 
cal parties  by  surprise.  It  gave  a  great  shock 
to  the  great  body  of  monarchists,  who  thought 
the  old  equilibrium  was  seriously  disturbed,  if 
not  destroyed.  This  feeling  was  the  more 
unavoidable  as  the  Government  was  now  in  con- 
spicuously  feeble    hands.       Teixeira    de    Sousa 


Men  and  Principles        251 

was  not  credited  either  with  sufficient  strength 
of  character  or  sufficient  power   in    Parliament. 
This  led  to  a  monarchical  coalition  to  oppose  the 
Government.       Its   strength   was   so   great   that 
the  Government   had   to   be  dependent  on   the 
goodwill  of  the  Dissentient  Progressistas  for  its 
existence.     In  other  words,   Teixeira  de   Sousa 
had  to  be  in  open  alliance  with  a  party  led  by 
a  politician  whose  name    had  been  involved  in 
the  conspiracy  on   the  28th   January    1908,   and 
who,  though  he  escaped  arrest  by  taking  refuge 
in   Spain,  had  been  unable  to  emerge  from  the 
cross-examination   to   which    his    character    had 
been   submitted.     But  once   Teixeira   de  Sousa 
called  Alpoim  in  aid  of  his  own  ambitions,  he 
had  to  pledge  himself  to  enforcing  laws  against 
religious  congregations.     In  view  of  subsequent 
events,  it  is  difficult  to  say  whether  he  contem- 
plated seriously  carrying  out  his  promise  or  if  he 
only  meant  to  fool  his   supporter  in  the   usual 
way.     Anyhow,  helpless  to  obtain  his  purposes 
by  these   means,  the    new  Premier   resorted    to 
electoral    corruption.     This  same   man  who  had 
once  denounced  the  Portuguese  electoral  law  as 
"fraud"  was  now  not  only  flattering  and  bribing 
the  masses,  but  also  distributing  official  positions 
by  lot  to  gain  popularity  and  votes !     When  the 


252      Portagtiese  Monarchy 

28th  August — the  day  fixed  for  the  elections — 
came,  the  Government  was  in  its  element.  It 
destroyed  votes  in  more  than  one  borough  where 
the  Opposition  had  a  majority,  and  resorted  to 
all  methods  of  violence  to  gain  the  elections. 
The  frauds  practised  by  the  Government  agents 
were  so  great  that  the  returns  for  the  boroughs 
of  Lamego,  Guarda,  Braga,  Castello  Branco, 
Leiria  Santarem,  and  Faro  had  to  be  contested. 

But  amidst  all  this  weakness  and  confusion 
there  was  one  force  steadily  pressing  forward 
to  a  definite  aim.  It  was  the  force  of  Republic- 
anism that  was  obtaining  ascendancy  in  the 
politics  of  the  country.  In  spite  of  the  electoral 
system,  with  its  anomalies  and  iniquities,  the 
Republicans  had  succeeded  in  returning  fourteen 
members  to  Parliament,  Lisbon  alone  having 
placed  the  Republican  list  at  the  head  of  the 
poll.  There  was  no  denying  that  Republicanism 
had  made  enormous  strides  within  the  last  two 
years,  which  assuredly  was  the  logical  conse- 
quence of  the  quick  kaleidoscopic  changes  of 
policy  of  the  five  ministries  that  were  in  power 
during  King  Manuel's  short  reign.  It  is  there- 
fore interesting  to  call  attention  to  the  following 
figures : — 

In  1908  the  number  of  votes  obtained  by  the 


Men  and  Principles        253 

Republicans  in  Lisbon  had  been  13,074,  and 
those  obtained  by  the  Monarchist  Coalition  were 
10,982,  the  Republicans  having  gained  a  majority 
of  2092  votes.  In  19 10  the  Republican  votes 
amounted  to  15,104,  and  those  of  the  combined 
monarchical  parties  to  only  9108.  The  Re- 
publicans had  thus  in  two  years  increased  the 
majority  to  5996.  No  comment  can  add  much 
to  the  eloquence  of  the  figures.  This  Republican 
victory  was  therefore,  with  some  reason,  described 
by  them  as  "  a  notice  to  quit,  served  upon  the 
monarchy." 

The  time  had  arrived  when  the  dullest  and 
the  most  bigoted  mind  had  to  perceive  that 
monarchical  Portugal  had  seen  a  writing  on 
the  wall  that  was  not  hard  to  decipher.  Yet 
at  this  supreme  moment  the  false  supporters  of 
monarchy  were  busy  in  fincjing  out  the  party 
manoeuvres  of  Teixeira  de  Sousa.  And  on- 
slaughts of  the  bitterest  kind  were  hurled  at  the 
young  King  by  their  press — especially  by  the 
Correio  da  Noite,  the  Progressista  organ — for 
no  other  crime  than  that  of  maintaining  Teixeira 
de  Sousa  in  power.  A  more  gratuitous  insult 
never  was  offered  to  a  king.  He  was  accused 
by  them  of  "  selling "  the  monarchy  to  the  Re- 
publicans, which,  no  doubt,  he  unconsciously  did 


254      Portttgtiese  Monarchy 

by  listening  to  the  advice  of  those  who  had 
taken  an  oath  to  be  at  the  service  of  a  principle, 
but  who  really  were  at  the  service  of  their  own 
interests.  Here  I  may  be  allowed  to  quote  a 
few  lines  from  the  **  Lusiads,"  which  bear  very 
aptly  on  the  point — 

"Oh  quanto  deve  o  Rei,  que  bem  govema, 
De  olhar,  que  os  conselheiros,  ou  privados 
De  consciencia  e  de  virtude  interna, 
Ede  sincero  amor  sejam  dotados ! 
Porque,  como  este  posto  na  supema 
Cadeira,  pode  mal  dos  apartados 
Negocios  ter  noticia  mais  inteira, 
Do  que  Ihe  der  a  lingua  conselheira." 

(Canto  VIII.  E.  54,)  ^ 

And  thus  the  curtain  fell  upon  the  great  monarchi- 
cal drama,  on  the  5th  October  19 10. 

*  "  Oh,  how  a  king  that  governs  well  should  see 
That  counsellors,  and  those  more  intimate, 
With  love  sincere  and  endowed  should  be 
With  conscience  and  purity  innate  ! 
For,  as  he  throned  sits  in  majesty. 
Of  matters  far  removed,  affairs  of  State, 
But  little  more  can  he  be  made  aware 
Than  what  the  official  tongue  may  choose  declare." 
(Translation  by  J.  J.  Aubertin.) 


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